Not all abuse is physical. Some is the result of psychological warfare. For 42 years, I seemed to be receiving coded messages that something was wrong. They came from seemingly likable billboard ads, pop songs and TV comedy skits. The queasiness, t...
I could see Miss Briggs opening the envelope, but I could not imagine how she'd react to the contents of the page-and-a-half letter. I didn't have any idea whether this circa-70-year-old person who had taught in our community only that one year would be expected to know who I was, or even distinctly remember the school.
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If she taught in many places, perhaps she chose a student each year to kick around and I'm just one in a crowd. Or, if her belittling of me was revenge for the school's instruction to pay me special attention, maybe I'm a unique person from her past. Has she become contrite and responsible so that atonement to the 50-something man in whom she wounded the child could be possible?
A very good friend I've known since my 20s is one of the foremost professional mediators -- he demonstrated criminal justice mediation on a national TV feature show, and served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice setting up dispute resolution programs around the country.
Of foremost importance, Jerry was a friend. Our contacts had waned in recent years, but when I explained my situation to him in a phone call, and then e-mailed him the whole story in the form of a proposed letter to the school system, I was reminded what a great friend I had.
"First of all," he said during a return phone call, "Let me say how sorry I am that you had to go through that in your childhood."
And with that, any lingering doubts that I had a genuine grievance with the teacher vanished. Jerry was a straight dealer, and one of the most experienced persons at helping people resolve disputes, and restore themselves after being victimized by criminal offenders. He had seen the results of every kind of hurt.
Jerry previously told me that requesting a mediation meeting or phone conversation with Miss Briggs would not be a good idea; those are almost always seen as the precursor to a lawsuit, he explained, and usually make the other party withdraw, or even counter-litigate preemptively.
I did not want to place my grievance into the realm of lawyer-driven retribution, or the straightjacket of court procedures. Mediation, which Jerry introduced me to 30 years before, presumes that the offender may have relevant points to make that can lead both parties to a settlement balanced on the exact fulcrum of blame, which is not always entirely one person's. If, as in my 4th grade situation, the fault is entirely on one side, that as well can become clear under mediation. Moreover, the confidentiality agreed to by all parties in mediation allows them to be candid and forthcoming in ways lawsuits strongly discourage. The victim can tell the offender directly how their actions hurt them, and the offender can talk about factors that may have contributed to their miscreant behavior. All this encourages accountability by the offender and highlights their humanity to the victim.
Decades of doing volunteer mediation work and writing about the method in publications, though done to help or enlighten other people, had the unexpected effect of preparing me to handle February 2010 and the time since then far better than the "revenge culture" of our county's mainstream could. Still, experience had tempered my expectation, and when Jerry went on to explain that the school system was not going to agree to any mediation meeting with their officials unless I first filed a lawsuit, it was not terribly surprising, if it was discouraging. Nonetheless, just knowing that my registered letter reached them, and certainly was read, provided the overall healing. Mailing it to the school system headquarters was the much belated reporting of my teacher to authorities. It became the walk down to the principal's office to tell on Miss Briggs I wish I had known I could make in 1967.
In fact, this was better. In 1967, I didn't know my school system had a "Code of Ethics for the Professional Educator." The version from that era stated:
"In fulfilling his obligation to the student, the educator... shall conduct professional business in such a way that he does not expose the student to unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement."
With this information included in my letter, my grievance was an iron clad case – that Code of Ethics section may as well have read: "The educator shall not compare the student's hair to a dog's while stroking it in front of the whole class."
My letter to the school system cited Miss Briggs' touching of my hair -- and included the verbatim remark she made about it -- as the worst of her nine months of unethical acts toward me.
"I lived in fear the entire school year, unable to explain this behavior by a trusted authority figure who singled me out for this treatment," I wrote.
"As was the norm at that time, I never discussed what was happening in the classroom with my mother or any other relative. I had hypothesized that the teacher's actions were a deliberate technique which someone had suggested as a way to bring me out of shyness."
I included a photocopy of the 3rd grade teacher's note about what she considered my disinclination to speak, and told the school system I believed it may have led to Miss Briggs' actions, through no fault of the note's writer.
I also stressed to them that I did not want money and had no intention of filing a lawsuit.
Jerry knew just how to edit into my final version language that bridges a victim's needs to heal with an institution's requirements that legal points be covered, and which showed them I knew what I was doing.
