Back of the Class and Why: A Teacher and Principal With Tourette's
A blog by William L. Hartwick — Founder, Author & 27-Year Retired Public School Principal
Front of the Class, and My Back of the Class
Many people know Front of the Class, the 2008 Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on Brad Cohen's book about becoming a teacher with Tourette syndrome. I am not criticizing the movie. It reached millions of viewers and proved to the world that a person with Tourette's can stand in front of a classroom.
But my real-life journey started somewhere very different.
“In middle school, my teachers put me in the back of the class. They figured out they could keep an eye on me back there. If I was in front where they had their back to me, I would disrupt the class even more.”
To me, front of the class was a misnomer. My reality was the back row. My title is Back of the Class and Why. This is the true story of what happens when the kid banished to the back row grows up, steps into the classroom as a teacher, sits in the principal's chair for nearly three decades, and turns what the world called a defect into his greatest leadership strength.
Undiagnosed for 35 Years: The Kid Nobody Knew What to Do With
I lived with Tourette syndrome for thirty-five years without knowing its name. As a young boy, I was labeled “functionally illiterate.” I struggled to read, I struggled to write, and my body made sudden sounds, jerks, and blinks that my mind never gave permission for. Teachers saw a boy who wouldn't sit still or stop tapping. They saw defiance where there was only neurological overload.
In my poem “Tourette's,” I wrote:
“Living thirty-five years of my life, always wondering why
I would go from complete laughter to a sudden tearful cry
Teased my entire childhood mainly by those we “trust”
Adults were the worst of all”
That sentence—adults were the worst of all—stayed burned into my heart. When I earned my credentials and stepped into public education, I made a solemn promise: I would become the adult I never had as a child. I would fight for the kids who reminded me of myself.
In the Classroom: Reading on the Floor and Rhythm Over Rules
I began my career in the trenches of the classroom, teaching first grade for six and a half years using whole language and phonics-based reading. When a six-year-old child could not sit still in a rigid wooden chair, I didn't send them to time-out. I sat on the floor with them. Reading on the carpet was just as much of a classroom as reading at a desk, because that was where the child's nervous system felt calm enough to absorb letters and sounds.
Later, I taught a fifth-and-sixth-grade combination class. You cannot pretend every student is at the exact same developmental place simply because they share a room. You have to differentiate instruction and meet each human being where they are.
Because of how my own brain worked, I learned to write and teach in rhyme. Rhythm matters. If you give an anxious or neurodivergent child a laminated poster of twelve rules, it becomes wallpaper by Thursday. But give that child two lines that rhyme, and they will be repeating them on the school bus in October. I didn't teach compliance. I taught cadence. Say it, feel it, keep it.
Turning Weakness Into Strength: From “Illiterate” to Spelling Bee Chairman
When you grow up being told you are functionally illiterate, words feel like landmines. For decades, language and letters were my deepest source of shame. But as an educator, I learned a fundamental truth: Tourette syndrome did not make me weak. It forced me to develop intense focus, resilience, and an unbreakable work ethic.
I took what the system called my greatest weakness and turned it into my proudest strength. For 14 years, I served as Del Norte County's District Spelling Bee Chairman. Standing on stage year after year, guiding and celebrating young students as they mastered the English language, was living proof that early academic labels do not define a child's ceiling.
For four years, I also served as Chairman of the School Attendance Review Board (SARB). When students were chronically truant, traditional systems looked for punishment. Having sat in the back row myself, I looked for the root cause: What is making this child afraid to walk through our front doors? Fix the safety and belonging inside the building, and the attendance takes care of itself.
Transforming Schools: API Growth and Eliminating Suspensions
Over my 18 years as a public school principal, managing four schools across elementary and middle school levels, my mantra was always the same: “The Place to Be.” Culture, climate, and the emotional safety of children were my number one commitment.
My principal's meetings with my teachers were never academic. I didn't tell them what to teach. I didn't tell them how to teach it. I didn't even get involved with test scores. They did that work—that was their responsibility. What I shared with them was: It's the place to be. It's the kids' classroom. We had nothing but cultural and climate meetings. When it came down to data and test scores, I went and sat with them and let them lead the meetings. That was their forte. Mine was: Respect them, love them, or find someplace else to teach.
At one middle school, we proved what happens when you lead with culture and treat neurodiverse and struggling students with dignity instead of exclusion. We raised the school's Academic Performance Index (API) from 638 to 799—a massive leap in student achievement. At the same time, we reduced student suspensions by 90% and eliminated in-school suspension entirely.
When you stop kicking kids out of classrooms for behaviors their nervous systems cannot control, and start teaching them replacement skills and emotional regulation, children thrive. Every child wants to succeed when the environment makes success possible.
Building the District's Only ED Classroom and Reverse Mainstreaming
One of the defining milestones of my career was building the only classroom for Emotionally Disturbed (ED) students in our entire school district—because no other administrator was willing to take it on. Traditional education often treats children with severe behavioral, emotional, and neurodivergent challenges as disposable, shipping them out to isolated facilities.
I refused to let that happen. We built a dedicated, highly supported classroom right on our campus, and we pioneered reverse mainstreaming. Instead of isolating these children from the school community, we invited general education students into our specialized room for collaborative projects, reading, and activities.
Reverse mainstreaming transformed our entire campus culture. It taught general education students empathy, patience, and leadership, while showing our special education students that they were valued, respected members of the student body. Compassion replaced fear.
Sitting on Both Sides of the IEP Table
Throughout my twenty-seven years in public education, I sat in thousands of Individualized Education Program (IEP) and Section 504 meetings. But I never sat there as a detached bureaucrat. I sat there as a man who lived the same reality.
I established a strict standard for my staff that I believe every school in America should adopt:
“When we talk about a child's disability, we must mention the child's name 100 more times than we mention the disability. An IEP is for access to education, not for collecting another label.”
I banned vague, subjective teacher notes like “he won't cooperate” or “she is disruptive.” Instead, I demanded concrete facts: Which task? What time of day? What was difficult? What helped? If a boy can explain a complex science concept aloud with brilliant clarity, but his motor tics prevent him from completing a handwritten worksheet, he does not have a learning deficit—he has an access barrier. Give him speech-to-text, allow oral presentation, and let his mind shine.
Over nearly three decades, I made the tough phone calls home, walked exhausted parents through the special education maze, and had the profound honor of shaking the hands of high school graduates whose families were told in kindergarten that their child would never amount to anything.
Four Words I Gave Every Staff
Before every school year began, I gave my teachers and support staff four non-negotiable words:
Acceptance. Patience. Tolerance. Love.
From my poem “Teaching” and my daily work with educators:
“Acceptance, patience, tolerance, and love should be a part of your every day
Without these basic standards success will go away”
I told my staff: A student's file is a rear-view mirror. It holds last year's discipline referral, an old test score, or a previous teacher's frustration. The reason the rear-view mirror in your car is small and the windshield is wide is because where the child is going matters infinitely more than where they have been. Look out the windshield at the living human being in front of you today.
To Every Teacher Looking at the Back Row
Tourette syndrome, ADHD, autism, and neurodivergence are not character flaws. Tics are not defiance. A meltdown is not manipulation. And silence is not respect—sometimes silence is a frightened child trying to become invisible.
Sitting quietly in a chair is not proof of learning. A tic is not proof of disrespect. We must stop confusing obedience with education.
In my poem “Teaching,” I wrote:
“Unless you are willing to learn from those who already know
You've put limitations on yourself, never allowing you to grow”
The children in our classrooms have profound gifts to offer if we are brave enough to build schools that welcome them. I was that little boy placed in the back of the class. Today, I dedicate my life through The Invisible Backpack Organization to making sure no child carries that burden alone.
“Allow your ordinary to become extraordinary.”
— William L. Hartwick
Founder, The Invisible Backpack Organization
“Where ordinary becomes extraordinary.”
Website: https://theinvisiblebackpackorganization.com
Email: william@theinvisiblebackpackorganization.com
Phone: 904.609.1313