PART 3: THE MILL SPRINGS ERA (2013-2014)

In the fall of 2012, when I was seeking a school to grow into from Lionheart, my parents heard about a small private school in the middle of Georgia horse country. Called Mill Springs Academy, its mission statement was essentially the same as that of The Lionheart School, only with a more traditional academic structure. The website was filled with success stories, and my parents were excited for the challenge and opportunities this new environment would provide. So, after a series of tours, applications, interviews, signatures and briefings, I was accepted into Mill Springs. In the fall of 2013, I stepped onto campus as a seventh-grade student, eager to finally learn what it took to truly overcome autism. But what I learned is not a glamorous success story. It is instead a story of perseverance, faith and of course, failed romance.

I can't exactly remember the very beginning of my time at Mill Springs, except learning about the one thing that, above all else, defines it: the Levels System. The Levels System might best be described as a behavioral caste system, but it encourages students to grow and strive to become better members of the community. All students enter at Level C, which stood for compassionate, caring and cooperative: the bedrock of morals at Mill Springs. One could sign up to receive feedback from different peers and the entirety of the faculty in a meeting held every Friday at ten a.m. If they succeeded, they could be promoted by vote to Level R, which represented Role Model or Responsible. Upon becoming a Level R, the next level up was Level L for Leadership. Of course, there was a catch: students could be written up by their peers or teachers to be demoted if they could not handle, or represent well higher levels. The level below Level C is Level S, which is a temporary level for students who need support to make better choices. Levels meetings were thus both the most beloved and most feared events on campus. Yet there was far more to these meetings than simple promotion and relegation. The teachers placed extraordinary emphasis on community and accountability, which resulted in the Levels system being largely student-driven; in other words, it was the students who did most of the writing up for promotion as well as Level S. My parents believed the system would be beneficial because I was not responding well to what adults told me, and maybe hearing feedback from peers would allow me to reconsider my behavior. That’s one of several reasons we went with Mill Springs.

My one year at Mill Springs had an incredible impact on my life, but while I was there, it was a nonstop rollercoaster. I was placed in Communication Arts, the community for students who needed more support and made Level R in record time, which enabled me to earn privileges such as the annual field trip to a remote dude ranch in Arizona. I made friends fairly quickly, rode the bus to school for the first time and navigated changing classes; in fact, by second semester, I was taking five of my six classes through PreUpper (the community to which most seventh and eighth graders belonged) and even had my amateur radio license (my callsign is KK4WPJ). However, I had some difficulties as well. Early in the second semester, one of the students committed suicide. Although I had only talked to her once, I wondered if I would be dead as well. Someone I was particularly close to was greatly shaken, and seeing how it impacted them was hard. This person and I shared a complex relationship. She was, in my eyes, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, perhaps, if for no other reason, because she appeared the most vulnerable. She was brought before the student body for lying and was demoted to Level S almost immediately. She refused to take responsibility for her actions, and that is where I believed that I would help. I would become her friend, try to mitigate my obvious crush by way of a friendship. I never wanted a single date. And so, little by little, we became friends. She and I were both devout Christians, which led me to believe that God had a role in this relationship. To this day, I believe He did. It just was not what I had believed it would be. So began a semester-long friendship, but as the semester came to a close, I sensed some incongruities between us. I should have heeded these warnings; yet if I had, I probably would not be writing this article.

One of the hallmarks of life in CommArts was the annual dude ranch trip. We traveled to Arizona, where about 25 students and teachers rode horses, visited the Grand Canyon and explored quaint towns straight out of Western movies, some of which were ghost towns or even just tourist establishments. I was so beyond excited to get to spend some quality time with this friend. I thought our friendship would continue to grow as it had. Instead, its demise began. As it turned out, she was dating someone. I was furious about that, and even worse, everything I did seemed to annoy her. The pain continued upon our return home. I was demoted to Level C for my misconduct on the trip (I yelled at a teacher, probably because of my anxiety over all that was happening as well as for something I said to my friend.) She would raise her voice. Her friends constantly threatened Levels action against me. I did not give up. I thought at the time that I would stay, and that Mill Springs would be my home until I went to college. So I persevered trying to be friendly and reasonable, although I felt at this point like the principal there was my only friend.

I decided, after several weeks of thought, to sign myself up for Level R feedback. On March 14th, I gave my rationale for why I wanted to move up. My friend told me the day before that she had feedback, so she was the first person I called on. What followed was painful for me, as she voiced all of her frustrations about me, and the more I tried to defend myself, the worse it got; the entire community screamed at me. Needless to say, I did not get promoted. While I thought this was the worst thing ever, and it took time, God would use this to continue to help me grow after I left.

In the end, we made up with each other, and began to consider each other on good terms, but I seethed inwardly at the pain I had received. It took a while, but I realized that God was showing me how to be a man, how to trust Him in all circumstances and how to be a good friend. I now knew better how to deal with women, how to advocate for myself and how to be diplomatic when necessary. I was now ready to move on after only one year. But doing so was a long and even more excruciating process, one that will be described in my next article. I will always be grateful for the people I met at Mill Springs and how they helped to make me into the man I am today.