Head-Royce School

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  Why Write This Down? By Matthew Patella Why write this down? People usually ask me that. Well, doing so re-writes the socially enforced relationship archetypes, and changes my role as a human being. This brings healing, and ends cycles where I am forced to play a role I don't want. I remember ignoring stalkers in Kindergarten, because that was what adults had taught me to do, and falling down a flight of stairs after being thrown or pushed, hitting my head quite soundly, my skull being soft at the age of 5 or 6, there being no pain yet, and walking away in the direction of the science rooms, the direction I was shoved; for the most part pretending it didn't happen because the organizational culture made it too awkward to report, and life going on. When I think about what I can really remember about the stairs incident, in Kindergarten, I seem to remember Greg using Jake as a shield when grabbing and throwing me down the flight of stairs, but all I could see of Greg was his hands, like the rest of his body was black. And I remember a syringe puncturing me earlier in the day, and the Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Goodrom, always seeming unfriendly yet speaking with the normal words. In the first grade, I remember ignoring a stalker whispering things from the bushes lining the Head Royce Jungle Gym, and a flexible arm throwing a rock, to hit my head, causing, this time, tremendous pain, and having to run away. Chris Y, who had been mean to me at every opportunity since montessori relaid Kevin Peters saying he was hit in the head with a rock, and that Joe Kermish Wells had done it, but Kevin later said that rock throwing hadn't happened. As a person with learning differences, I was almost always a target of bullying, and it was almost always difficult to report problems simply because doing so would make those responsible for the situation look bad. I started learning weird tricks, like paying attention to people following and whispering at me, and starting to engage them. Usually trying to get to a teacher meant having to go through the stalker, and it usually felt like something worse would happen if I told my side of the story. I didn't take notes on conflicts growing up, but in using the method of engaging with stalkers I often had to physically engage and escalate with over 5 people each year, k-12. I never hit anyone on campus, but often had to wrestle people. My next serious injury was in the 5th grade, if I remember correctly. The VonKugalgen twins had often been belligerent and insane, and when they suddenly became nice, I didn't suspect anything. After multiple suddenly positive interactions, we played a monkey bar game to see who could jump to the farthest monkey bar. I won, reaching the fourth bar consistently. A few days later, it rained, and Stephen VonK suggested I go and try the monkey bars again. I thought it might be fun, went out in the rain, and jumped, but my hands slipped, and I fell and broke my arm. I'd swung and jumped on the monkey bars in the rain a few times in the past without problems, and I remember on the day I broke my arm a grease that was hard to see in the rain had been applied to the fourth bar. The Head Royce School added a program for people with learning differences while I was in lower school there. The program was new, it was sort of stiff. There weren't activities tailored to individual learning differences. Instead we got extra time, and were allowed a little creativity in schedule. The reality that many of the different kids likely would be targeted by bullies because of their differences was never discussed, and I learned to define my learning differences in the positive light of giving me a unique perspective. Many of the HRS teachers were great, especially in high school, and classes were often outside the box. I don't recall a teacher touching me at all, or any sort of bad conduct by an HRS employee. What did Colin Rood knocking me over after a meditation retreat at age 18 teach me? That meditation heals, but doesn't build self defense.
  By Matthew Patella, December 30, 2017

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