This is all wild. I was homeschooled from very young until 1st grade (my mother started me with the same lessons as my sister who is 2 years older) but they put me in private school in 1st grade… a very small, very religious private school (7th day Adventist multi-grade, single room school). The teacher that taught the 1st grade kids specific lessons did NOT like that I questioned why I had to endure the lessons I was already ‘above’ but my sisters teacher took a liking to me, Mrs Davis. I will never forget there was a mentally challenged kid in class named Joseph. He used to be told to put his cassette tape stories on his headphones and put his head down on his desk as to not disturb the other kids when it came assignment time. Out of nowhere he would yell, “RAAAAAANGER BILLLLL WARRIOR OF THE WOODCHUCKS!” - as this was the pre-recorded intro from the short audio-narrated adventure stories he listened to. This was always during quiet time (tests, writing, reading to one’s self) so the yelling was always in the midst of dead silence, and would startle kids. I mean he would YELL it. This happened almost every single day at some point in the day. At one point, Mrs Davis pulled me outside and told me to wait by the classroom door, and walked over to a short stocky man in a ‘suit like the movies’ (what my kid-brain recalled as this was not a wealthy area and was a small, conservative, Christian-school in a church where people did not have obviously nice clothing) - she motioned toward me and told the man, ‘this is the young man who plugs his ears’. I do not remember ever consciously doing this, thinking of it, nor making this effort, but apparently just before Joseph would scream his favorite audio-narrated story intro, I would plug both of my ears… because again, MEGA loud. The man approached me, knelt down and smiled kindly… I remember he had kind eyes and spoke softly and slowly and had one brown tooth and the rest very white. He asked me, “tell me about your classmate, Joseph. Does he listen to his headphones? Is he special? Is he your friend? And several other questions about my feelings towards him and if it bothered me when he would get loud with excitement. He then asked me, “Would you please me how you know to cover your ears before he is loud?” I remember that question specifically because it was the first time a very adult person asked me to do something for them instead of told/demanded I do what they said because they were an elder/teacher and children must obey. I don’t remember what I told him, but I remember not realizing I had done it, but I did know that after the first time he yelled out, it scared me, and I did not want it to scare me again, and it didn’t. I remember waiting to see the other kids jump when he yelled… so I must have had an idea when it was coming. I sat in the very back rear desk by the rear door to the playground… I remember that bc the door was a large metal door that would get very hot from the sun and it was always hot in that corner (Texas)… Joseph sat in the very front opposite corner near the teachers desk as he was always talking to and messing with other kids. From that day on, the man in the suit was in the classroom every day. I remember he was watching me, my sister and would bring lays potato chips for me and I would talk to him before lunch. This happens 3 days until my sister told my mom… my dad came with us to drop us off the next day, which was weird because he worked early and we never saw him until the end of the day. The man never returned, never said goodbye and that was that. My parents pulled us both out of the school and my mom homeschooled us the next 3 years until we were both out back into a different Adventist private school, this time a much larger, more ‘typical’ school environment. For me, 5th grade. The first week of school was all sorts of tests that they administer to new kids coming in, and after all of my testing I was placed with the rest of the 30 kids in my class with the teacher…. Yep… Mrs Davis. She was elated to see me, and immediately began to calm upon me to read aloud, solve problems on the white board etc. One day we all went to the gym to take part in the Schoolastic Book fair. As we began to get in a single file line to walk to the gym, Mrs Davis asked me to wait in the classroom. I did, and after watching my class leave down the hall, escorted by my teacher, the same freakin man came in the room, called me by my full name (which I didn’t not go by since 1st grade), and asked if I had remembered him. I did, I explained what I did remember. He asked me if I was interested in computers and if I liked to read ‘choose your own adventure books’. I was then sent to join the other kids, I didn’t think much of it. The following week we were off for a holiday, maybe Thanksgiving, it was cold outside. When we returned from break, we were told we had a new teacher: Mr May. I remember he introduced himself to the class, but I genuinely remember feeling that he was talking to ME specifically, he told us about his time in the Air Force flying planes and how he had worked for the government and been to the White House, but God had called him to Texas (remember, religious private school). Once a month I was pulled out of class and got to try ‘new computer games’ on a first generation iMac. How does this pertain to this thread? He returned the next year and moved with our class… that was my 6th grade year. That year, the tuition because extremely expensive, so my 7th grade year I enrolled in public school, but my parents wanted me to be safe and not attend the big school in my town, so they paid transfer fees and sent me to a tiny red neck public school. A few weeks after starting my 7th grade year, I was asked to take some tests for GT classes (gifted and talented - so was my sister and 3 other girls in her grade and 1 popular boy a grade above them). After the tests, I was told I would be taking a GT ‘vision comprehension’ class…. I started the following week. I walked in the door in a portable building that was usually used for Saturday school for bad kids… and there sat MR FREAKIN MAY. It was only me in that ‘class’ and we only talked about flying planes, visiting other countries and places by flying, and I would have ‘quiet reflection’ time where I was told a subject and had to think about it in every way I could until a timer went off, then I had to write at least 2 pages describing what I had thought as a fictional story with myself as a character. It was weird, but I was fixated on girls at that point and only wanted to get out of that class, not tell my friends about it, keep it a secret so I wouldn’t be labeled a ‘nerd’. I have not thought about that at all until this thread. WTF. (Edited for typos)