Dear Mrs Haywood,
You WON’T WANT TO remember me – but likely will never be able to do so. Traumas are near impossible to forget. But considering the role you played, you most definitely deserve some recognition from me.
Recently, I wrote a letter to my fifth grade teacher, Miss Homer. I owe her a debt of gratitude for the directional change she made of my educational path. She may very well have been the Miss Mcgonagal of my Canyon View experience. And if she is my Miss Mcgonagal, you are my Professor Snape (and we all know how that played out in the end.)
I’m not quite sure what compelled you to take me on as a home room student after our distasteful interaction in English the year before. Surely it was not because we enjoyed one another’s presence. Maybe you felt my gift for disrespect would benefit from more of your influence. Maybe you were looking to expand the horizons of your teaching capacity. Or maybe a list of home room students was placed in your hand and you were given no say in the matter. Whatever the reason, you accepted me as a student for my 4th grade year, and everything that came along with it.
One thing you may or may not have realized about the 4th grade version of Todd Baggaley was that, unlike the previous year, this Todd was no longer medicated. Yep – this defiant little disaster was now pharmaceutical free. As much as it didn’t change your plight, I do hope that you were informed as to why.
With any drug therapy time is required to adequately understand its collective and individual pharmokinetics (the way a drug moves through the body, including the amount of time it is therapeutic.) This is the mid-eighties. Stimulant use to treat ADD at the time was comparatively new, especially in children. Its therapeutic capabilities were not wholly understood by the many general practitioners who had recently taken it on as a treatment repertoire for their uncontrollable patients at the request of their desperate parents. There were not the resources there are today to widely communicate the common downsides to the different ADD therapies. Additionally, for the “crash” that was anticipated, as a doctor, it is difficult to prepare a parent for the drastic personality change that overcomes a child when their medicine wears off late afternoon.
During my third grade year, Ritalin had been fairly effective throughout the school day. I was still a brat, but less of one. Yet, come 4pm each day I was depleted of dopamine. I vividly remember several afternoons where I’d been sent to my room for some belligerent act at home and, while there, being overcome with hate, anger, and despondency beyond anything I’d previously experienced. I had such rage that I screamed over and over, “I wish I was dead – I want to kill myself” while also pushing over furniture, dropkicking my room door, and bawling hysterically. My poor mother – I can only imagine the embarrassment she felt trying to teach her piano students just 30 feet away.
My parents decided, during the summer prior to 4th grade, to take me off of Ritalin indefinitely.
This is the version of me that walked into your room in August 1988…sweet as can be and eager to learn.
In truth, nearly all the memories I have of our interaction are limited to facial expressions. You rarely reprimanded me openly in class. Other than the situationally necessary curt statement of “Go Sit in the Hall” (which eventually was shortened to just “Go”) you generally favored the more subtle tactic of staring directly at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. You had an incredibly effective set of “angry eyes.” These, garnished with an unnatural amount of blinking, usually affected the chilling of my devilish disposition – especially when utilized in close proximity.
Example
Todd (in class, slyly to his friends): “Hey guys, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I…”.
My friends, suddenly looking at something over my shoulder, convince me to hold my tongue. I slowly turn my own head…AND,
WHOA!!!
I nearly fall backwards out of my chair. Your face, through remarkable stealth, is astonishingly close to my own. I’m surprised our noses don’t touch. At this distance your battering eyelashes are audible at the rate you operate them.
“Mr. Baggaley!”
(you are the only person outside of telemarketers to have ever called me Mr. Baggaley.)
“Mr. Baggaley!…I would like to speak with you out in the hall.”
You and I slowly walk to the spot – the same spot you and I visit on at least a weekly basis. And by visit I mean you scold and I frantically try to avoid eye contact.
Looking back, I appreciate your method. In fact, I’ve used it on my own kids in church meetings…minus the blinking (I can’t muster that skill.) The embarrassment of walking out of the room in front of everyone is punishment enough for the child. It also buys the scolder a moment to compose themself, a helpful benefit when aggravated. AND, most importantly…there are fewer witnesses; okay, maybe not something you had need to be mindful of since your scoldings were always productively appropriate. Regardless of your intent, such visits were generally effective for at least a few days…until that February afternoon – that fateful day my antics graduated beyond the measures of a hallway visit.
It was just after lunch and long-recess. As was custom, you were reading the class a novel to settle us. For some reason I found myself particularly irritated by the storyline. Naturally, it was then sensible that I sound out my opinion. I proceeded to do so in a manner consistent with my maturity – imitating noises of a bodily function. Now it wasn’t simply the rumbling that proved problematic, but the consistency and longevity of its reverberation (I had developed a gift.) A short spurt here and there may have justified a visit to the hallway. But continuous and flagrant flatulation for a full minute qualified for something unprecedented…besides the round of applause I was hoping for.
No invitation to the hallway this time. In fact, not a word was spoken. You simply grasped me by the arm and escorted me down to the administrative office. There, I reverently sat in a chair for some time as you engaged Principal Wood behind his closed door. When you emerged, you bolted right by me, back towards the classroom, giving no indication I should follow.
A minute or two passed. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Then from inside his office Principal Wood’s voice boomed, “Todd…come in here [I did so]…and close the door behind you.” He already had the phone in his hand. He was calling my mom.
“Mrs. Baggaley, I have Todd here in my office – again. He has pestered Mrs. Haywood beyond reasonable consideration. She is refusing to let him back into her classroom.
Mrs. Baggaley…what are we going to do with Todd?”
I could hear my mom making a statement on the other end of the line.
In response Mr. Wood stated, “Yes…I’m at a loss myself. But whatever the case, he cannot go back into her classroom.”
Their conversation continued for several more minutes. When it ended, Principal Wood hung up the phone, clasped his hands in front of him and sighed heavily.
“Alright Todd, there is a desk just across the hall [a SOLITARY DESK that students would use when taking individual tests – mostly the gifted kids used it.] For the time being, that desk is your assigned seat all day every day until we can come up with some other arrangement. Do not go back to the classroom to gather your things. Mrs. Haywood will have them brought to you.”
That day, and for many days thereafter, I sat at that solitary desk, doing my work assignments and daydreaming. The first week was quite interesting. Just 20 feet from the teachers lounge, my position put me in contact with teachers from previous years to catch up on life. Because the desk was most used for academic advancement, the teachers often mistook me for a praiseworthy pupil.
The following were not actual conversations but representative of interactions I had while sitting at that desk:
Mr. Anderson (3rd grade teacher): Hey there, Todd!!! Good to see you!!! What have you been up to?
Todd: Hey, Mr A, nothing much…well actually…I made farting noises in class so they put me here for a while I guess. It’s not so bad. I finish my work pretty quickly so I just draw most of the time.
Mr. Anderson – Hmmm…that’s interesting. Yeah…well…I like the leprechaun you’ve drawn there. He’s got himself a nice pot o’ gold I see. Well, I gotta get back to class. See you later.
OR
Todd: Hi, Mrs Freestone and Mrs Bear (2nd grade teachers)
Mrs. Freestone and Bear: Hi, Todd!!! Whatcha doing here?
Todd: Well, you know how I am. Got myself in trouble again so they decided it’d be best if I sat here.
Mrs. Bear: Oh???…Well for how long?
Todd: I’m not really sure, but probably for a while. Mrs Haywood and I don’t get along at all.
Mrs. Freestone: Wait – you didn’t throw everyone’s lunch around the room again, did you?
Todd: You remember that?
Mrs. Bear: Of course we do!!!
Todd: No, it wasn’t lunch boxes this time. I guess I’ve just been really bad the whole year. And when I made some noises in class the other day Mrs. Haywood had just had enough.
Mrs. Freestone: Todd…Todd…Todd. Hopefully someday it will come together. But you’re still singing in the school chorus for me, right?
Todd: Yep, unless they say I can’t. Either way, my mom said I would still have to show up for practice since she is the accompanist and she needs my help with my baby sister.
Mrs. Freestone and Bear: Well, good luck Todd. Work hard and try to be good.
Weeks went by. Sitting there, greeting teachers, drawing pictures, practicing cursive using curse words. My memory is a bit foggy on the actual time in isolation. I want to say months – there are memories watching kids participate in school ending activities from that spot. But I also remember participating in 4th grade activities later that year. Whether it was weeks, months, or something in between, that solitary desk became a stepping stone in my childhood.
It signified to myself and to those around me that things needed to change. It was 4th grade when I started taking interest in girls. That discovery coupled with the shame of the desk triggered within me a unique desire to be better – or at least fake better – so that I might be worthy of someone’s affection. It motivated Principal Wood and my mom to change my environment, looking for a style of teaching to better meet my needs. And it laid a definitive line of which I knew that I never wanted to cross again.
However you, Mrs Haywood, received nothing but angst from our interaction. As a teacher, and a good teacher at that, you placed yourself in a stressful situation for the good of children (a sacrifice not all today’s teachers are willing to make.) You may have, at some point, felt like an imperfect teacher – maybe wondering why YOU were the common factor for the worst of my behaviors. Yet had it not been for your earnest demeanor and stern expectations the extent of my malady may have remained hidden to myself. What you may have considered personal imperfections were perfectly needed to ignite revelation within me.
As an individual that works with kids in stress-filled situations I now appreciate the energy it takes to maximize growth and minimize trauma when working with them. I am a pediatric dentist. I am occasionally visited by children in severe pain. Of these cases, it’s not uncommon that a child expresses preference for their toothache to dental treatment. Their anxiety exceeds their pain. Parents likewise suffer, aware what trauma awaits their child. As the dentist I also dread the moment. No one involved ever escapes the experience without feeling emotionally poisoned. Yet, professionally, I KNOW what must be done. Injections and extractions on a resistant child are far preferable to a much darker outcome. The situation, therefore, requires a physician willing to suffer an uncomfortable treatment for and upon the child. It has often crossed my mind that this is not unlike your predicament 35 years ago. My mind plays it something like this:
A ten year old boy with an emotional disorder requires a professional’s help. He needs someone willing to inflict an uncomfortable treatment, someone who accepts being despised for her action, someone willing to experience trauma herself. Someone willing to suffer all of these things so that this boy has a CHANCE to be BETTER. In essence, he needs someone willing to give him all that she can.
AND YOU DID.
I now realize that you loved me – but with a love uncommon and undervalued. For its rarity, this type of love is often mistaken for mistreatment. I made that mistake; yet now I understand. Your punishment enabled my potential. As the sacrificer you empowered the sacrifice. Thank you, Mrs. Haywood, for having the character to empower the potential within me. To that end I hope that you do never forget me – the boy you sent to that solitary desk.
toddBaggaley
theBruzd
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