Jeff Metcalf

The Battle of Hastings

Ms. Stiles was tough. She was old, too. Really old…maybe in her mid-20s. She was British, as were most of the teachers at the International School of the Hague in Holland. She had red hair in a Prince Valiant cut and she smelled of Gouda cheese. At least this is the way I remember her.

My first day in class, I was so nervous, my feet were moving up and down like a sewing machine. Ms. Stiles walked up and down each row with a yardstick that she would wield like a broad axe. She stopped alongside my desk and told me if I didn’t stop my infernal dancing, she would chop my feet off with a paper cutter. I had no doubt at the time that she meant it. She was that scary and that convincing.

In Ms. Stiles’ class, the goof-ups sat at the back of the room, which was fine by me. There was more space for my feet. Keeping me company on the back row was Nigel H., this droopy-eyed English kid who just didn’t seem to get anything right in class and Danny K. who had the largest ears of any human being I had ever met or would meet in my life. Nigel once told me he had been dropped on his head a bunch of times when he was born and that’s why he was so dumb. I had little reason to doubt him because he had a funny-looking narrow head sort of like… well, he’d been dropped on his head several times. I never thought he was dumb. Ms. Stiles would often ask him if he was an idiot, which she pronounced, ‘idjit’ in her highbrow toffee English accent. It never seemed to bother Nigel. He’d simply say, “Yes, Ms. Stiles. Probably.” But what Ms. Stiles never understood was that Nigel was a storehouse of really cool information, it just didn’t happen to be the stuff Ms. Stiles asked him about. Wars, historical battles, torture methods of the Medievals, that was his specialty.

Nigel didn’t shuffle his feet like I did, but he kind of mumbled to himself, did battle, I guess. That’s what it sounded like. Every so often you’d hear the ssswooosh (an arrow from a crossbow) followed by a thwump (piercing through the chain mail armor of some enemy, probably Ms. Stiles) trailed by the aaahhh (of that same villain falling off the castle wall) into the ocean far below. He was fantastic, drawing out the fall until it ended in a very faint splash. His artwork always dealt with knights and wars. He drew the most detailed castles with moats and drawbridges, great battle scenes, with dead bodies, and decapitated soldiers, and fallen horses with arrows stuck out of them, and archers with crossbows and longbows and catapults launching fiery cannonballs and guy with incredibly long arms pouring boiling oil over the castle wall onto unsuspecting enemy soldiers who were using battering rams at the front gate. He was a great artist by third grade standards.

Once, on a dumb day, Ms. Stiles asked the class what famous battle took place in 1066. The class, to a person, even Monica G., who knew everything, sat there, dumb. Ms. Stiles was boiling. We were losers. Suddenly, Nigel’s hand shot up in the air. It was incredulous. I looked at him like, ‘Not today, Nigel.’ I thought, ‘This would not be the day to piss Ms. Stiles off.’ The rub was, there was nobody else in class Ms. Stiles could call on. Nigel was the only one in class with his hand up. And he was confident.

Ms. Stiles asked the question again. There was a pleading look in her eyes. But, Nigel’s hand was slashing back and forth like windshield wipers. She had absolutely no other choice but to acknowledge Nigel. To this day, I think she actually went into a stall that moment in teaching where she had no way out. My feet were moving up and down with such vigor my desk was moving out of the back row and Danny K. was pulling on his ears so hard that I thought his eyes might roll back in his head like a slot machine.

Finally and reluctantly, Ms. Stiles acknowledged Nigel. “Nigel,” Ms. Stiles said, her voice offering a forewarning of sorts, “Do you think you know the answer? DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU KNOW WHAT IMPORTANT BATTLE TOOK PLACE ON…”

“Yes!” Nigel blasted out, before Ms. Stiles could finish her sentence. “The Battle of Hastings! 1066! William of Normandy crossed the English Channel to fight the Saxon King Harold II. The battle began on October 14th in the early morning and William of Normandy was triumphant and claimed the English Crown to become the King of England. He became known as William the Conqueror! Harold II was killed on the battlefield, shot in the eye with an arrow.”

Nigel went on for a full five minutes describing the feigned retreats and when Harold’s army chased after the Norman troops William’s boys hacked them up pretty good. He went on for a full five minutes detailing every significant battle strategy with absolute passion and clarity.

Ms. Stiles just stood there, in front of the class, slack-jawed and dumbfounded. Nigel the ‘Idjit,’ Nigel Who Often Wore His Sister’s Angora Sweater, Nigel of the Perfect Hair, Nigel Lord of the Back Row was a freakin’ Medieval scholar. The class was enraptured by Nigel passion. Ms. Stiles finally had to stop Nigel from his lecture or he would have continued on through recess, which would have been fine by all of us. He was a fabulous teacher. It was a stellar moment in third grade history. From that day on, we all saw Nigel in a different light. Nigel H., in his unassuming way, in his shy and accepting way, held his own secret mysteries. He was not the ‘Idjit’ Ms. Stiles thought he was. He was a quiet young boy full of curiosity and a hunger for knowledge. Nigel H. was a teacher and we ragtag group of third graders were his students. On that day, we all owed Nigel for having bailed our collective third grade cans out of the fire.

The Battle of Hastings is in me still. It resides deep in the grey matter and I had no idea then, how much this moment would inform me later in my life as a teacher. Indirectly, Ms. Stiles had given us a great lesson in teaching by attempting to humiliate one of our own. What I think I came to understand, although I could never have articulated it at the moment, was this: we are teachers and we are all students and this journey is always in constant motion. I am indeed in Nigel’s debt.