The First Box

In Grade 2, our teacher put my best friend Michael Oleksyn in a giant cardboard box at the back of the room. How else could anyone focus with him being so distracting, right?

Together, we turned what could have been a punishment into something special.

Michael decorated it with comics and poked holes in the sides so he could see everything. I helped as much as i could, and spent a lot of time in the box too. It was as cool as a fort.

At the time, I didn’t have the language to explain what we were doing. We weren’t trying to be disruptive. We weren’t trying to get out of work. We had simply found a way to make the environment fit us instead of forcing ourselves to fit the environment.

Looking back, we were building a better box. It was a prototype sensory nook.

I left Humboldt two years later, but I never lost touch with Michael.

I told the story of Michael to countless students over the years: how on my very first day of kindergarten, I found the weirdest kid in the class and decided he was going to be my best friend.

For a long time, I thought I was telling them about Michael, but it was also about what we did with that box and about myself.

It helped me understand something the education system is still catching up with: children often know what they need long before adults understand why they need it.

Eventually, I realized something else. The reason I understood so many of my weird students was because I had been one myself. I’ve always found other weird kids and together we’d figure out ways to work with what the system gave and build something that worked for us.

Over the past five years, Michael has offered advice and guidance while navigating an awkward position. He works in the media, reporting on education stories. I run a small educational business, and parts of his own story intersect with the work I do.

Like so many of the people I admire, he has a strong sense of ethics. He is careful about where those lines are, and I respect that completely. I value him in my life and accept the support he shares with gratitude. So instead of asking him to tell his story, I’m telling mine.

Thank you, Michael. I love you, and always have. Thank you for being the first WebbSprout, the very first seed in the garden I’m still trying to grow.