I was in one of the first classes at The Meher Schools. It was at a church called Saint Anselm’s in Lafayette. I was in the second grade.
I remember making ice cream and screaming at the top of my lungs, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” I thought, “This school is pretty cool—they let us scream at the top of our lungs and they're not telling us to be quiet!”
I remember a friendship with a classmate who had autism. I so enjoyed his different way of taking in and responding to the world. I loved how wonderfully different he was from me, while internally, I felt we were the same.
In third grade the school moved to a different church. I remember pretending to ride motorcycles and “pick up chicks” with my friend Mikey. Next thing I knew, I was summarily taken to the breezeway and given a stern talking-to by Mr. Peterson, who told me: “We do not call girls chicks. It is disrespectful.” Mr. Peterson was teaching me to have character.
Character education is paramount at The Meher Schools, and Lord knows I needed an education. I was given space to develop my best self.
Fourth and fifth grades were a challenge for me. We had four kids in our family and we couldn’t afford sending both my brother and me to The Meher Schools, so I went to the public school down the street. I also missed out on braces.
I had always been a wild child, outside all the time, just having fun exploring my world, trying to figure things out. So it was natural that I ran with the other wild kids in the neighborhood, the “cool kids.”
“Cool” meant forming a “gang” and causing trouble in the neighborhood and in school. “Cool” meant we were all experiencing divorces, marital strife, older brothers who beat us up, teachers who didn’t understand us.
We banded together to share our feelings and support each other.
We made it our goal to disturb the teachers and the classroom. School felt like a process of trying to put me, a round peg, into a square hole.
Luckily, they put me in the “gifted and talented” program. My teacher must have been relieved to send me down the hall to the gifted classroom for an hour or two each day.
That class was an oasis. I was able to nurture my curious brain and my heart in that class. We studied literature, biology, and physics and went to an opera, Cosi Fan Tutti. It was hard to go back to the regular classroom.
In the fifth grade, two of my friends, fellow “gang members,” one of whose parents were divorced, one of whom was being beaten up by his dad, decided they had had enough of school and their parents. They hatched a plan, which they shared with me: Run away to a mother who lived up north. They planned to get on a Greyhound bus and go live with her.
They weren’t at school the next day, so I knew they had done it. I was pulled out of class and asked if I knew anything about it. For a second I hesitated, not wanting to rat them out, but then my friend’s dad looked me in the eyes, and I saw his terror and desperation. I told them of the plan.
Sadly, it was too late. A tragedy happened. They had hidden in a refrigerator box in an alley and were crushed. One friend died, the other’s legs were crushed. I remember the surviving friend coming back to school on crutches, his legs horribly bruised. He shared the experience of watching his friend die. He said he felt responsible. I remember comforting him. I never forgot what he shared with me.
I went back to The Meher Schools in the sixth grade, still smarting from that experience, hardened by it perhaps, upset, unsure, caught between my “gang” life and an internal, quiet life of the heart.
My behavior at The Meher Schools was horrible. Disruptive, rude, and clownish. I was held back a grade, which made it even more difficult. I felt very insecure and tried to hide it with bravado in my role as disruptive class clown. Bad clown.
In hindsight, holding me back was the right thing to do: I had skipped a grade early on, and this put me back with my peers. I look back on it and I’m grateful because I still have dear friends from both of those sixth grade classes.
My teachers accepted me, as I was. Ms. Kochoweicz, seeing that I was having trouble paying attention and participating in a lesson, took me aside and asked me what animals I liked. I liked bears and whales. She asked me to please write a report on one or both of these animals. I felt seen and I felt special. She had me. She saw me. I wrote papers on both. I like to think those papers were some of my best efforts.
Ms. Kochoweicz didn’t condemn me for my bad behavior, she saw it as raw energy, and helped me channel it. This was completely different from my experience in public school. I was invited to channel my energy into things that I was interested in. Yes, I would have to jump through hoops here, but I could also find opportunities to dive deep into my interests.
I would like to end with one more story about how The Meher Schools and my teachers helped me in that difficult time. I was invited to join the boys chorus, led by the late, truly great David Hogan. So here I was, the worst behaved kid in the class—maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here? I had some decent competition—here I was, singing my heart out in chorus, trying hard to develop a new skill.
David Hogan again offered me a place to express my energy, and my heart. He opened up the beauty I felt inside and encouraged me to share it without embarrassment.
For this, and for all the teachers who nurtured me at The Meher School, I am truly and eternally grateful.
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