Figuring out when to ask for help might be the most important lesson Will Baker has learned.
As an elementary school student, Will struggled to focus on classwork and felt too anxious to raise his hand in front of his peers. After Will sustained a traumatic brain injury in 2000, he felt “lost as a person.” Seeing how much Will was struggling, his parents knew he needed a more personalized, supportive learning environment during his recovery.
With the goal of finding support for his ADHD and social anxiety, they enrolled him in Hill Learning Center at the start of his fifth-grade year. The cozy learning environment provided Will with individualized assistance from teachers who recognized his talents, needs, and challenges.
“I wasn’t shy to ask questions in that small room with the same people I saw every day,” he recalls, emphasizing the positive impact the environment made on his confidence. “Hill helped me socially.”
During his time at Hill in fifth through eighth grade, Will’s teachers made him feel supported, valued, and accepted. He remembers Dr. Bryan Brander – in his pre-bowtie, pre-Head of School classroom days – boosting his math skills. Dr. Brander and Will’s other teachers gave him immediate feedback on his work and supported him when he made mistakes, helping him realize that missteps are part of the learning process.
But the teacher who had perhaps the biggest impact on Will’s learning was Sue Duncan. “There was this energy about her that lit up the whole room,” he remembers, now two decades later. “She was so caring, so loving, so patient.”
Ms. Duncan and Will’s other teachers helped him understand the importance of setting goals and tracking progress towards them. A lifelong music fan, Will knew that after he graduated from Northern High School in 2011, he wanted to work at Guitar Center. Sure enough, he landed a job in shipment and stocking a few months after graduation. Over the next few years, he worked his way up the ranks to store lead. He remembers his decade at Guitar Center as “a lot of fun and loud music.”
But by November of 2020, Will’s struggle with addiction had become too much for him to handle alone. “I was tired of being sick and tired,” he recalls, acknowledging it was “time to put down the brown bag and put up the white flag” and to self-advocate for the help he deeply needed. Will enrolled in an addiction recovery program and has been sober since November 6, 2021.
Since moving back to Durham, he has worked as a maintenance technician at Triangle Springs, a behavioral health hospital in Raleigh. Always humble, he explains that his favorite part of the job is that “I get to work to support patients who are on the same path I’ve been on. Knowing I can help them is why I get out of bed every day.”
Later this year, he looks forward to an anniversary trip to Spain with his wife, who is a high school history teacher.
Although Will has faced academic challenges, injuries, addiction, and anxiety, he is grateful for all he has learned from these experiences. “I can only keep what I have by giving it away,” he explains with his signature humility.
Looking back, he is grateful for his parents and for the teachers who supported him as he found his confidence and his own path in life. He knows he would not be where he is today without his time at Hill Learning Center. “It’s just the best place to grow as a person.”