From Crisis to the College of his Dreams
Kalev’s repeating print, “Mountains to Waterfalls,” reflects the water cycle and interconnectedness of eco systems, and started out as a Cajal classroom assignment introducing our students to the medium of printing.
Cajal's 1st Graduate Blazes a New Trail and Rejoins the Road He Was Meant to Travel
Art teacher Stephanie Niles doggedly challenged Kalev to paint a self-portrait and other new artistic projects outside his comfort zone, in preparation for the demands of art school.
We are thrilled to announce that Kalev Viirand, Cajal Academy’s first graduate, will be studying architecture at RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design): one of the top art schools in the country!
This is an impressive accomplishment for any student, but it is made more extraordinary by the journey that preceded it. It is a journey that I know painfully well, as Cajal’s first graduating senior is also my older son.
Kalev’s journey started with a narrative that many of our families know all too well: the extremely bright and inquisitive young child who relishes school–until they find that it fails to give them a runway for their high analytical skills to grow. Add to this a complex medical profile that impacted his ability to organize his thoughts, process visual information and communicate his complex ideas–and that deeply undermined his confidence and sense of safety in busy environments. It started to feel like we were running through molasses on a detour off the path he was meant to live. We gradually shifted from “travel team” soccer and a bright academic future to fighting for medical answers and new educational supports that might turn that bright light back on again.
Kalev integrates complex patterns showing influences from the traditional folk patterns common to his Estonian heritage.
Navigating a Medical Crisis In a Global Pandemic
As he headed into high school, this detour turned into a full-on road wash out. We had long known that Kalev had inherited my connective tissue disorder (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome), but just as medical facilities were shutting down for the pandemic, he slid into a severe medical crisis. Not the time you want to be trying to diagnose an unexpected multi-system decline. Soon his body was in a long, slow tail spin that threatened his life itself. Thanks to an extraordinary medical team at Brown University in Providence, RI, he was eventually diagnosed with a congenital tethered spinal cord that had become stretched with each successive growth spurt until it was dangerously thin, and compressing the nerve roots feeding all of his organs–thus the systemic fail that was underway.
Other families wondered how the pandemic would affect their kids’ college plans; we had far more immediate concerns.
In June of 2021, it was Kalev who made the ultimate decision that would give him back his life. As he wrote in the opening lines of his college essay, “My hands were shaking as I signed the consent form for the surgery.” That courageous decision was the beginning of a long course of physical, emotional and academic rebuilding just to get back to the starting line where we could all start to think about the future.
Classroom “doodles” evolved into an intricate series of sophisticated geometric designs with humble beginnings as sticky notes and gel pens.
Since the start of the next school year, our team at Cajal has worked tirelessly to tease out the complex relationships between his neurophysio challenges and his academic access, and to rebuild the specific neurocognitive skills that had always been out-stripped by his analytical strengths–just as we do for all the students at Cajal. Physio therapies, emotional support to process the medical trauma he had just survived, neurocognitive and language therapies were integrated with academics–first 1:1, then in a small cohort of peers–to make up the learning time he had lost.
All of this was “quarterbacked” by our licensed physical therapists and our renowned neuropsychologist, Steven Mattis, PhD, A.B.B.P., who translated the science of how body-brain connections work to set a scientifically valid approach to which academic skills and expectations should be layered in at each stage of his physical and emotional recovery. Knowing that tinges of acute pain impair working memory, his math curriculum was adapted to provide him the formulas while he got through those grueling early months after the surgery. Math class was upright as you’d expect until the pain was too great, but then seem-lessly shifted to resting on a massage table his PTs had brought into the room, or taking laps around the building to reset his back—but math class continued nonetheless.
Kalev’s digital designs unconsciously created representations of the vision loss that was underway, forcing the eye inward to its apex in the very center of your visual field: the one place where his vision remains clear.
Making the Shift from Surviving to Becoming
Bit by bit, Kalev came back to where he had been before the crisis, and then began to soar past it. Slowly but surely, the quiet boy who struggled to express himself began to find his words. His early interest in art began to blossom, and with each of our project-based learning units he invested himself more, directing his teachers in exactly how he wanted something painted when his back hurt too badly to do it himself. Slowly, one system at a time came back online, but the crisis left its mark in an unusual visual difference that reduces his clear vision to a narrow central field. Undeterred, Kalev’s love of art naturally shifted focus as well, and the doodles he’d always made in class to keep his mind focused turned into intricate geometric designs executed in miniature on pads of sticky notes that he carries in his pocket wherever he goes: designs that became the cornerstone of his successful admissions portfolio.
Kalev accepted the challenge to design a fictitious medieval democracy to the next level, sparking the love of architecture that led him to RISD.
Kalev’s interest in architecture was sparked by one of the project-based learning ‘deep dives’ that he completed last spring at Cajal. Students were charged with envisioning a democratic community during the height of feudalism in Normandie, France. They synthesized months of history, civics and scientific curriculum to develop a scaled blueprint for their visions and negotiated a democratic charter with their peers. Then they converted their blueprints into 2’x4’, 3-dimensional models using found materials such as Amazon boxes.
Kalev took this complex problem-solving task to the next level. He leveraged the topography of the area to develop novel defenses that were technically possible with the technologies and resources available in that day and time. His model was a work of art, with carefully angled roofs painted to depict the rooftop plantings that were important means of insulation in the day. By the end of the project, he was hooked, and photos of his work were the first he added to the portfolio that he submitted to RISD.
Throughout RISD’s admissions process, Kalev was challenged to explain how his medical journey affects him as an artist, and to create new pieces using techniques he’d never tried before—like this first attempt at objective drawing.
Choosing his Own Next Chapter, and Charting a Course Towards It
This fall, a visit to RISD’s campus sealed his interest, and the whole Cajal team sprang into action again, this time to help him make this dream a reality. Stephanie Niles, our art teacher and a talented studio artist in her own right, stayed late with Kalev day after day, exposing him to new art techniques that he hadn’t had time to learn given the journey that he’d been through. Dr. Mattis helped him process his journey and find the confidence to talk about it in his application, while his teachers helped him communicate these difficult experiences in a heartfelt essay and through his portfolio. And his small cohort of peers helped to cheer him on. When RISD Admissions pushed him to create new pieces far outside his comfort zone and to process, and share, his story through his portfolio, the whole community gave him the support he needed to take this on. Along the way, they gave him a whole new understanding of who he is, and what he can do as an artist.
This is precisely the type of journey for which we built Cajal. From day one, the mission behind it all has been to empower kids to chart their own future, by identifying and addressing the challenges that threaten to stand in their way. The fact that my kids and I have complex medical profiles has led us to amazing practitioners who have insisted on teaching “mom” the science behind it all, and showing me how the systems fit together and talk to one another. Where traditional educators saw “disabilities” to be accommodated, I saw clues we could use to identify and then solve the underlying problems. So I pulled together an extraordinary team and a new educational model that does that, while giving kids the academic skills they’ll need for a future defined by their strengths, so they’re ready for it when we pull the challenges out of the way.
Coming Full Circle, and Moving Forward
Throughout this trying course, I never stopped having the feeling that somehow, somewhere, the road my son was meant to travel was still out there. I couldn’t shake the conviction that somewhere in the distance, there was an intersection where it would meet with this much longer, harder road he’d been forced to travel. From the moment he transferred to Cajal, our team started ‘reverse engineering’ from that imaginary point, strategically developing the academic, social-emotional and physio skills he would need to be ready to take it when he got there.
Every parent waits eagerly to hear whether their child will be accepted into the college of their choice. For me, his invitation to join the RISD community represents so much more than a college: it is that intersection I had always hoped was out there, where he can rejoin the road that will take him to a future of his own choosing. One that makes sense for that bright child for whom math formulas and decoding strategies were like shiny new toys.
A few months later, Kalev and I were back on RISD’s campus — this time for Admitted Students Day. As we walked past the “RISD” sign I had first seen when I was driving Kalev around Providence just to escape our hotel room in the weeks following his surgery, I became completely overwhelmed. Soon we were sitting in an auditorium listening to the Director of Admissions’ welcome address—where he highlighted Kalev’s journey among a handful of incoming students whom he highlighted as having made a deep impression on their admissions committee. Not despite the challenges he’d overcome, but because of the resilience he’d shown in continuing his artwork and developing his talent while doing so.
As Head of School, I know I speak for the whole team when I say that we could not be prouder to see our first graduate go forward to such an impressive school.
As Mom, I simply stand in awe of the grit and resilience it took for him to push through this fight and claim agency over his own life’s course. I can’t wait to watch as he charts his own future from here.