#023 Aaron Fugitt [Class of 2009]

 I am so grateful for an opportunity to speak to my fellow peers across time about my experiences at the Oaks. At the outset of writing this letter, I was asked, "what advice would you give to current students at the Oaks?" So I've decided to speak to my peers primarily on the duality of my experiences while at the Oaks. If I had to use an analogy for what I’m about to describe, I would pick a coin. As we all know, a coin has intrinsic value as a unit. However, all coins have a dual nature: there is a face value and flip side. So too is the nature of my experiences and memories of my time at the Oaks. 

 

I can honestly say that I have a lot of good memories from my time at the Oaks. I attended the Oaks from 1st grade through 12th, however due to a mental illness, I was unable to graduate and had to drop out of school my senior year. That being said, I came out of the Oaks with some of the best friends I could ask for. The bonds that were forged there were deep and nearly two decades strong. One of my best friends I have known since he came to the Oaks in 8th grade. I was his best man at his wedding a few years back, and we are still close to this day. I met my other best friend while attending the Oaks in 3rd grade and we still hang out regularly. I can also say with certainty and honesty that the education I received, as well as the moral and ethical foundation I established there still keep me grounded as I move forward in my life. My advice to fellow peers of the next wave of Oaks students would be to cherish one another and use those fundamental ethics to your advantage going out into the world. This is the face value that being at the Oaks has given to me. That said, as with the duality of our world there is always a flip side, a price, to something gained. 

 

The flip side is that every one of those cherished memories I have were forged in the fires of stress, pressure and pain. Every one of the memories I hold near and dear to my heart are about my peers. I can not off the top of my head recall a single memory that has value that isn't steeped in a boiling pot of overwhelming stress. It was the bonds I created with my peers that gave me strength to push forward amidst a battlefield of essays, speeches and a truly reprehensible amount of homework. Like many of the men and women in my class have recalled, there were weeks on end that would be school for eight hours a day, extra curricular activities, followed by 3-5 hours of homework. And that was just to maintain. As someone who wasn't blessed with a genius brain, I had to work my ass off just to stay afloat in a desert of quicksand. To give you a personal story from my own background. I will never in my entire life forget back in 9th grade when we were studying chemistry, specifically it had to do with covalent bonds. I sought out help from anyone and anything that could help me get a good grade, because I was on the verge of failing that class. I studied every night for two hours leading up to the test, I made flash cards, and the night before the test I went into my bathroom with a dry erase marker and wrote out problems on my bathroom mirror to solve for five hours straight. 

 

When the day of the test arrived I remember getting about half way through the test and started to choke up because even then I knew that all my effort wasn’t enough. Needless to say, I failed and I was terrified to tell my father, a teacher at the Oaks. So I decided to wait until I had that vibrant pink attention grabber in my hand as proof that I had failed before approaching my dad with the bad news. 

 

The day arrived. As expected, I received that bright pink piece of crap and our science teacher said he wanted to go over it later that day after class. Needless to say, I felt a sense of defeat, shame, and utter hopelessness as I internalized my failure. 

 

Shortly after that I took my test to my father and immediately broke down crying and told him everything that had happened. Thank God my dad was understanding, and even went on to tell me a story of something similar that had happened to him in a college math course years ago. I remember my dad saying that he had never worked so hard for a failing grade in his whole life. He also said that he would never punish me or be disappointed for trying my hardest and failing. 

 

If I had to sum up the entirety of my Oaks career, that story is the same fight that all of us went through day in and day out. Month after month, year after year. I know that many of my classmates went through the same type of stress and pressure, because we literally had Mr. Williams came into our homeroom one day and confronted us about how much time we had been spending on homework. He had an air of disbelief as he confronted us for spending too much time studying. Everyone in the class tried explaining to him that we had to do that much homework just to keep up our grades. His words to us were, "Are you spending your time studying effectively or will you go and get a snack for 15 minutes then come back and keep studying and count all that time as time spent studying?" I have 17 other people who can back me up on that. 

 

Maybe things have changed since my time at the Oaks, but if it hasn't and there are other classes who feel the same stress, then I would exhort you to take a step back and really evaluate if that is worth your time and well being. I graduated with a 3.2 GPA but honestly most colleges, will give you grants or you can apply for financial aid as a 3.0 student. I would highly encourage you to do a risk/reward assessment. 

 

For those of you who don't know, I have to deal with the issue of debilitating migraines for the rest of my life partially due to the stresses the Oaks put on me. You could say it was so much that it broke my brain a little bit. There were other factors that contributed to my lifelong mental instability but my neurologist backs me up on this. Because he watched me deal with these stressors since I first started getting migraines when I was about 13. Before I get into the final subject I wish to discuss, I wanted to give you a quote which has been an inspiration for me and hopefully it can help in some small way. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue forward that counts." Winston Churchill

 

As George Kostanza's father would say, "It's now time for the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re going to hear about it." All jokes aside, I really would like to bring a few things to light which have weighed heavily on my heart throughout the years. To begin with, my time at the Oaks was full of struggle from the first day to the last. When I started at the Oaks, I was placed in 1st grade. And while my loving father said he would work with me every day to help me stay afloat, it was immediately clear that I probably should have done kindergarten over again. I mean after I came out of kindergarten at public schools I still didn't have my ABC's down. Not an ideal place to begin when entering a school as academically rigorous as the Oaks.

 

But my father loved me and wanted me to succeed so he promised to sit down with me every night to help me make the grade. And he stayed true to his word. Every day after school he would sit down with me and we would spend hours poring over times tables and Shurley grammar assignments. And almost every night from first through third grade would end with me bawling my eyes because I just couldn't understand. To be completely open, I was also the kid who constantly got his name on the board and had check marks next to them. I had constant outbursts in class, and on more than one occasion would start fights with other students. 

 

Sometimes I think back on those days and wonder how much patience my dad had to have with me. Especially since he was a teacher there, I can only imagine it put even more pressure on him to mold me into a young man accepted to others as being "well-behaved". And I know now the weight of my own actions were a heavy burden for him to bear. Even through all the times I started fights or spoke out of turn, he still showed me an abundance of grace and forgiveness, which can only be described as a father's love for his son. The same way God loves us. He sees the muck and mire of our actions, but still showers us with unfathomable love and forgiveness.

 

That brings my story towards the end of third grade when it was obvious that now there was no choice but to hold me back. I remember that summer I was devastated because I knew that next year, all my friends were moving on and that my relationship with them would never be the same. There are moments in life where you realize that the trajectory of your life has changed. And it changes you, for good or bad. This is the first time that happened to me, and I remember vowing to myself that summer that I would never allow myself to be held back again.

 

As much pain as I endured being held back, I can say with full certainty that it was unequivocally in my best interest. For the first time since I started at the Oaks, I felt that I could actually keep up and succeed. That year I managed to get the runner-up position in the spelling bee. There were fewer and fewer long nights around the dining room table hashing out homework. There were fewer tears from not being able to keep a passing grade.

 

Fourth and fifth grades seemed to go by relatively smoothly. Although I definitely do remember missing many recesses in fifth grade due to a lack of understanding the material. I believe Claudia and I are on the same page about that. And while it was a hard year, and I was beyond relieved when we graduated to the 6th grade, I still felt like I was keeping up. Not succeeding but certainly keeping up. 

 

6th grade. I can't tell you how many people have asked me what it was like to have my dad as a teacher. What I will tell you is that I have always loved having my dad as a teacher. And taking aside the fact that he was my father, Eric Fugitt truly has a way of understanding and teaching that is rare. Some of you may disagree but I think a large majority of people know his heart and his passion for teaching. That said, I knew going into my 6th grade year that I had to be extra attentive. I remember the summer beforehand, my dad even telling me that he would be holding me to a higher standard than my peers because I was his son. But even so, that year was one of my favorite times at the Oaks.

 

This is the big point in my story where a huge paradigm shift occurs. Enter the antagonist, migraines. By the time I started middle school, I started getting incredibly intense, debilitating migraines. If I had to speculate on how or why they started I would give a couple of reasons. First is probably hitting puberty was an initial catalyst that got the ball rolling. But my migraines very quickly snowballed out of control as I started to miss school because of the frequency and severity. Which led to missing assignments and getting behind on tests creating even more stress on me, because I was constantly being scolded by teachers for falling behind. The second would probably have to be the introduction and aggressive permeation of reformed theology which flowed through the faculty and even into my family's personal life. I have always been amazed at how an ideology can allow someone to feel ostracized and alone when you disagree but so warm and comforted when you adhere to it. 

 

I don't say these things as a way for everyone to band together in hating the preferred methodology of the Oaks or the general beliefs of the faculty. But I also can't give my personal perspective without recognizing that the stress put on me by both the Oaks and the church my family attended, had lasting consequences to my already broken mind. Years and years of that mental, spiritual and emotional stress will have a lasting affect that I have to live with for the rest of my life. 

 

Please do not misunderstand. I'm not looking for pity or some form of malformed personal justice. And I'm not trying to play victim. But these are the facts. I will never be able to have a career job because my migraines interfere with the classic trope of the 40+ hour work week required to thrive in modern America. It is incredibly hard to find a partner who can fathom what that means to have a disability like mine. I will always be the one responsible for paying my medical bills which began accruing when I was 13. I am the one who has to live with these issues, till the day I die. 

 

To any faculty currently at the Oaks I would say, to take an introspective look at how you're interacting with your students. Love them, show them compassion and mercy. They are trying their hardest, so give them a break once in a while. Because if you keep pushing and pushing, it's possible you could break them the same way I was. And I don't think you want to condemn them to a life filled with struggle and hardships, because I've also witnessed the intense depths and magnitude you all are willing to go to for the sake of your students. I will always have the utmost respect for my father for being that role model for me.

 

Thank you for enduring my lengthy letter. If anyone would like to contact me, my email is lonewolf516@gmail.com or you can text me at (509)-475-4241.

-Aaron Fugitt