Show me your label . . .
Dec. 28, 2019 We all have that student. For me, the student is a he. It isn't always, but the one I'm think about is, so it's the pronoun I'm going to use. He walked in the first day of his 7th grade year. The year before, I'd seen his name on our after-school detention list almost daily. His sister had been in my classroom, and she was a challenge to know and connect with. She'd told me he "was even worse". Teacher hall talk often included information about his latest infraction. When I saw his name on my class roster in early August, I'd pondered what I knew about him. I want to say that again. I pondered what I knew about him - not what I'd heard, not what I'd seen. Those are very, very different concepts. Truth was - I knew nothing about him except he had a sister in my class the year before, and he'd had some difficulty with our school expectations as a 6th grader. What I didn't know about could have filled my classro...