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What's With the Hat?

About forty years ago I taught at the Heywood Environmental School in Louisville. Heywood was an innovative special education option within the Jefferson County school system. The school was called "Environmental" because all the staff were expected to maintain a positive environment for the students. We were all trained in a specific behavioral model in special education. Maintaining a positive environment was a pretty high bar because all of our students had histories of serious behavioral disorders.

Teaching at Heywood was hard work. I could only do it for three years. But it was an extremely valuable and formative experience. I learned a lot from the Heywood students and applied those lessons many times over of the course of my career.

My favorite student at Heywood was named Lennie. I got to know Lennie very well. I also got to know Lennie's mom and his younger brother, Jeffery.

In my classroom Lennie was always a model student. He sometimes looked a little intimidating but his behavior was never a problem. It took a long time for me to learn why Lennie was assigned to a school for kids with behavior disorders.

Eventually, I found the forms sent by the regular school that referred Lennie to Heywood. The only behavioral issues I could find were related to his hat. Lennie insisted on wearing a hat all the time. When teachers told him to remove his hat in class Lennie would explode and become violent.

In our school hats were not a problem so Lennie wore his hat all the time. After I got to know Lennie well enough I asked him, "What's the deal with your hat?" He took his hat off and said, "See. My head is shaped funny." I told him that I did not see anything funny about the shape of his head. He was not convinced.  He continued to wear his hat and he continued to be a model student.

That's Lennie in the picture. He is the one with the hat.




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