For Educators

Dear Teacher,

I need to tell you something that might change how you see the most difficult child in your classroom.

I was that child.

I was the kid who got sent to the principal's office. The one who threw things. The one the other teachers warned you about before the school year even started. I was labeled "the problem child" — the one who ended up in a children's facility because the adults in my life didn't know what else to do with me.

But here's what nobody understood back then: I wasn't angry because I was bad. I was angry because I was terrified. I didn't have a father. I didn't have anyone who stayed. Every adult who was supposed to protect me either left or gave up. And the rage that everyone saw as defiance? It was just a little boy screaming for someone — anyone — to show up and not leave.

Nobody did. Until one man did.

A volunteer from the Big Brothers program in Hartford, Connecticut walked into my life and never walked out. The first time we met, he asked me a simple question: "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And I — this angry, neglected boy who had every reason to stop believing — looked up and said: "I want to graduate high school, join the military, go to college, and write a book."

He didn't smile politely and move on. He adopted me. He became my father. He looked at a boy the world had given up on and said three words that changed everything: "This one's mine."

I'm 60 years old now. I graduated high school. I served in the United States military. I went to college. I built a 35-year career. I earned a 2nd degree black belt. I've been married for 28 years. And I kept my last promise to that little boy — I wrote the book.

Ziggy & Zeke: Even When You're Mad is that book.

It's a story about two frog friends who have a terrible argument, get tricked by a sneaky snake named Slither, and have to find the courage to say the hardest words of all: "I'm sorry." But it's really about something much bigger than frogs.

You see that moment every day. You are the person standing in the gap between a child's worst impulse and their best self. You are doing the work that changes lives — and most of the time, nobody thanks you for it.

So let me thank you now. And let me give you a tool to help.

The resources on this page are completely free. Use them however you need. Read the book aloud. Do the activities. Teach the Ziggy & Zeke Promise. Let your students hop, hop, SORRY their way through conflict resolution. And if even one child in your classroom learns that friendship is worth fighting for — that forgiveness is strength, not weakness — then this book did exactly what it was meant to do.

Because somewhere in your classroom right now, there's a kid just like I was. And they don't need punishment. They don't need labels. They need someone who sees them — really sees them — and says: "This one's mine."

Be that person. You already are.