I went to a really bad school.

And why it was actually good.

For such a bad school, I had a lot of teachers I liked. For such a bad school, it did a lot of valuable things in teaching me how to think about life… And while the things I’ve carried aren’t necessarily what they intended to teach, it made the lessons no less valuable. Today I think about my early education…

Top row, second from right. that’s me. first grade. Mrs. English’s class.

For such a bad school, it did a lot of valuable things in teaching me how to think about life…I’m not sure many people have a lot to say about their elementary, middle, and high school. It has challenged my thoughts not only through college, but then into my young adulthood, the period in which I might have told you, “it was a very bad school.” But then the years continued. And I’ve realized, many of the things I learned weren’t what they were intended, and have suited me well, and so now, well into parenthood and middle age, and at the half century mark I’d say, it wasn’t actually a bad school at all.

In the rear view mirror that only the passing of time, often in the form of decades, only then can we sometimes see the value and larger picture of what we thought was a challenge while we were going through it. This school I was so ready to leave by my senior year offered, in hindsight, a nice place that was fun to be, and allowed for a rebellious spirit that has carried me well through time... It caused me to question the powers that be, the biggest voices in the room, and ask, are they being genuine, honest, and are they even nice? And should I even listen to them? I learned to question a lot while at that school, and the specifics of that questioning, I thought at the time, was what defined the school. But the value came, it turns out, in learning to question in general, being allowed to question, and in not settling on what I was told at face value. And for this, I’m incredibly grateful, so much so that if you asked me now, I’d say, yeah, it was a pretty good school. A little weird of a school. A little eccentric, with some really fringe and at times cultish thinkers, but what school isn’t? It was a great place to grow up and learn to see through the clutter of ideas into the real world.

I went to a small and very religious school based at the proverbial and geographic crossroads of America. Corn country. Indiana. Basically at the center of the midwest. We lived in the country down a gravel road. At any given time I was hanging out with our dogs, cats, goats, horses, or just by myself, rarely people, likely mowing, riding a three wheeler around the field, or playing in the creek. But the school was just inside the beltway that defined the geographic sprawl that is Indianapolis. My feet existed in two worlds. Country. And a religious school.

The roll of classes that went through the school were for the most part pretty obedient kids. Our school was strict by comparison to the other schools in the area, including the other religious schools. No jeans. No sneakers except in gym class. Boys: hair above the collar, above the eye brows, and above the ears. Girls, skirts below the knee. No shoulders showing. We were expected to be neat and tucked in. We didn’t do casual. And while even rock’n’roll was frowned up, there was certainly no dancing.

But of all the classes that passed through this school, I think mine was one of the first to push those boundaries a bit, at least this is what I was told after we’d graduated. For such a bad school, I had very good friends, people who even if I’ve lost touch with in the passing years, I still hold in high regards all these years later. We had a confidence about our confusion in the place that was our school, and a sense that in a way, we actually ran it, authorities be damned. In my class there were a good number of us that had come up through the school starting in pre-K and kindergarten, and by high school we’d been there longer than much of the teaching staff. We knew the ins and outs of the not just the school buildings, but the system that made the place. We knew just how far we could push to avoid serious trouble. And perhaps more importantly, we knew how to not get caught, though sometimes we blatantly stepped on our own feet, a sort of act of self rebellion in which we knew we are going to get caught, authority be damned.

When I think back on it, there are several instances, extremely trivial, but that I have not forgotten, that sort of define this attraction to rebellion I had. First grade, “PE” class. For us at the time it took place in the library (which was weird.) I remember there was a group of kids allowed to run around and play while myself and a few other boys were told we had to sit and wait for some abstract sign from god that would allow us to participate in the motion that happening. I don’t remember the specifics but likely had to do with us being high energy, so we were being told to sit still because no motion was better than allowing our chaos, or something ridiculous. All that was going on, as far as I remember, was that the girls were playing ring around the rosy, and a few of us boys were sick of sitting. So we got up and imitated the girls. We were, even at that young age, making fun of them.

This is an old memory, and maybe a little off, but one thing was for sure… the teacher blew up at us. I was sent into a library cubicle to …read (I wasn’t much of a reader at that point in life, first grade), separated from my partners in crime. Ok, looking at books better than having to sit on the floor and watch the girls get to move around while forced to sit. I’ll take it. I think back to that, and I am pretty sure that was first grade, based on where the PE class was taking place, it had to have been first or second, and that little short troll of a woman that taught the class. And as ridiculous as it seems, I’m grateful for that little spark Todd, Jon, Joe, and I had. We pushed against something ridiculous. That is a valuable lesson at such a young age.

As I moved through the school, by middle school, I had fully developed the sense that I was untouchable. Sure, I could get a detention, or a harsh talking to, but for the most part, I was liked. I was the last of four boys to go through the school, so not only had I been there longer than most of the staff, but for those that had been there, I had three older, well behaved brothers that had paved the way with good reputations. Years later I’d find out that in addition to those things my dad had donated extensively to the school and paid the way for several other families. So my family was liked regardless. But to be fair, my parents expected good behavior, so even when we broke the rules, we did it with a good attitude.

So, a few years later in high school when we were caught trespassing on the roof, or thought to have “broken in” to the school at night (we did not technically break anything to get in, we knew which window had been left unlocked, and while there were signs of our having been there, no one could actually prove it was us - these were, thank god, the days before cameras everywhere) or, more blatantly, we when made a homecoming float well outside the excepted tradition, and instead of chantings of home coming cheer, we played on loud speaker Revolution by the Beatles and tore apart mannequins made out to be seniors and staff, thus ending the years long tradition of homecoming floats for homecoming, nothing really happened. We were scolded. We respectfully accepted the scoldings. Some kids got detention, though I don’t think I did. And what I take from this, in the big picture, is we had a level of rebellion that was unusual for the school, but still allowed. In hindsight, I’m ok with that.

This same level of questioning was not just in the social sense. I carried it into the classroom. While certain classes were scattered through the week, Bible class was every single day. This school was heavy on indoctrination, so be it, that is what parents paid for. And at one point, sometime in high school, I think my sophomore year, I asked, probably blushing a little as I did so because at the time, this was a highly unorthodox sort of question, and I knew it, but I felt I’d found a crack in the main frame, “if people in the middle of Africa or Asia or wherever have never heard the word ‘Jesus’ how are they supposed to invite him into their hearts? And how could a ‘loving god’ send someone in that situation to hell?” Silence. Stares. I was definitely blushing nervously.

I remember the quiet. For all the blur time casts over certain memories, this one is vivid. And I remember the level of blood pressure we could all see visibly rise in our bible teachers face, as it pushed from around his constricting, overtightened polyester tie, carried in thick veins up to his shaven face and military cut brow… a silent swelling, his eyes trying to figure out how to not smack the irreverence out of me. But, being who I was, he was not going to flip out on me like he sometimes did others, so he held it back. The anger was palpable. I sat sincere in both my question and my absolute nervousness that I’d asked it. “Perhaps this is better for a private discussion,” he said. And that was the end of it. I never went to discuss it with him, but his inability to answer honestly or cogently forever changed the way I think about religion, a thing I’d accepted up until that point, as just a matter of fact. It was all I’d known from birth. And again, for years to come, in those developing years after high school when we take the ideas we are raised with, but suddenly get to foster, develop, and/or abandon them as we enter the independence of young adulthood, if you’d asked me if it was a good school, based on the specifics of some of what we were taught and their inability to answer some of the core questions we’d asked, I’d have said, it wasn’t a very good school. But it was better than I was giving credit to at the time. Again, not for the specifics of what they were trying to teach necessarily, but for what it taught me and allowed me to carry on into life.

And while I think back to the rebellion it fostered in me, starting back with that deplorable little gremlin of a PE teacher I had in the youngest years (I can not remember her name, but she did look like a gremlin, literally), there were very positive personality traits exhibited by most of the teachers and staff. No place is perfect, but the school did have a very real ability to foster and encourage things like trust, hard work, respect, honesty, and compassion. I’m not sure many schools are focused on core values like that. Hopefully more than I realize.

And then there are the specific teachers, some of whom I appreciate for something more dear to me than just about anything else. Writing. And while there are several I remember fondly, for no real specifics, like Mrs. Morris, who was simply gentle and sweet, or Mrs Tutle, who I think was my first crush on an older woman… my third grade teacher whom I’d paint turtles on rocks for because her name was so close to turtle in spelling, but it was 4th grade that made the mark, that has defined my life since, because Mrs. English, (I’m actually surprised by this coincidence in her name) made me fall in love with English and the written words. I actually had her in first grade as well, but it was in 4th that she made the most impact by introducing me to both C.S. Lewis and Narnia, and Shel Silverstein during daily readings after lunch. These were the first books beyond Dr. Suess and the Mouse and the Motorcycle that I remember loving with detail. And while I remember her as being a stern, fairly frank and no-nonsense, she loved reading the class stories in such a way that we all were captivated by the language of the story.

And then, after a few years of teachers I barely remember, there was the next step in my falling in love with written words… Mrs. Easterly. And just putting into words here leads me to see the distinction and importance that happened at this step of my young development… Mrs. Easterly taught me not only to love story, love the words, but to love the act of writing the words, putting them on page, and trying to craft them into a thing that is a life of it’s own. This lesson required the first step that occurred under the tutelage of Mrs. English, but cemented itself with Mrs. Easterly who saw beyond my sarcastic writing, and pushed me to go further with it to develop something more profound, to push me beyond just being able to get a good grade, but to actually strive to create something more. In school, academics were much like the social dynamics of the school. I understood what it took, and did not have a challenging time navigating my way socially with a smile that kept me in good relations with the school as a whole, and academically with my grades. Grades were easy for me. I was good at getting through the system. I was good at making good grades without much challenge. But that, other than with regards to algebra, where good grades required absolute dedication (thank you Mrs. Tonkinson, I’m still very good, all these years later, at algebra) that was not necessarily a big step in learning. But Mrs. Easterly saw in me a love of writing that I didn’t know I had, and she pushed it on me, and put up with my strange, sometimes cynical and off the wall writings to help me get better at the thing. It was as if she was able to create a class format that existed outside the religious bounds that existed throughout the rest of the school and offer a window into something bigger than the rest of the restricted system. And encouraged me dive in to go beyond the system, to do more. I never stopped. I’ve carried that ever since.

She read my long stories, stories much longer than assigned, which weaved characteristics I stole from other things I’d read and encouraged them relentlessly, regardless, even in their tired and plagiarized tone. She introduced me to I Am the Cheese, and told me that my writing reminded her of that. (I still have the copy she gave me.) She told me to get a copy of the Catcher and the Rye, a book that while not forbidden, was certainly never encouraged at our school. (I still have the copy I got in high school too.) I struggled with some mild form of dyslexia that always has made me a slow reader, and slow writer, and oddly put words down in the wrong order, (a strange habit I still find myself doing) but she didn’t care about that and told me to lean into it as a way to tell the sentence differently. Look at what e. e. cummings does. Order doesn’t have to be strict, she told me. Just write. She saw my potential to play with words and pushed it. I’ve never looked back.

I kept writing in college. I started keeping journals. I took more scientific oriented classes and found that technical writing can be as much fun in word play as fiction, especially if it involved Central Asia, explorers, and geography (I was raised on Indiana Jones). After college I decided I wanted to write screenplays, some with friends, some on my own. I’ve since written a total of 14. My shelf of journals went from one, to two, and now three + full shelves, maybe more as they are scattered around my office at this point. I wrote a terrible novel in my thirties, followed by a decent one, followed by another, and am now working on my next. I have a line up of stories to follow, when, if ever time permits. But still I plug away.

For a very bad school it taught me something very important… that I love writing. I love the act of it. It’s a lonely endeavor, but when you share it, there is a certain satisfaction that comes from others finding a spark for themselves in it. And regardless of sharing, I simply like the motion of it. I like the motion of typing on a keyboard as well as scribbling with a pen and paper. I love the brain flow it creates. I love the challenge of staring at a blank page, or wondering what direction to take a thing in next. I love the exploration it offers for both past and future.

Writing offers one of the most satisfying state of minds I’ve ever known, on par but differently, to standing on the top of a rocky mountain peak, high above the valleys, far from any city or town, taking in a frigid breeze that comes scented with rock and pine, as the sun blazes down over the ocean of granite sprawled for endless miles around. I can no sooner imagine a life without words than I can imagine one without mountains and forests. These are the things that define life on earth for me. And all this brings me back to the point of this short piece… This life love was fostered by some very good teachers at a very bad school that I no longer look back on as bad at all. It was a strange part of my history, but that is what life is about… taking the strange and finding the good in it, taking our past and not focusing on the hardship and negative, but sifting it for the gold that remains in the pan. Or something like that.