#4

"He will come up to your desk making alien noises for no reason." That was the comment his fourth grade teacher left me to ponder over the summer. I figured I would have no problem. Things like that  make me happy. Usually those students are my favorites (not that I have favorites). He was never really able to participate in class enough to become one of the beat-of-his-own-drum favorites though. It seemed he was resigned to just getting by. Whenever I spoke to his mother about it, it was always one of two excuses:

"He has really bad allergies, I'll put him on some medicine." OR
"His allergy medicine is making him groggy, I'll take him off the medicine."

I would say that 90% of the time, 4 was off in his own world, staring off into space. His written work did not show a marked difference. Although he usually had the idea, and often understood on a deeper level, his answers were always bare-boned and disappointing. He had some great friends in the class, but most of the connections related to video games. Many times when he would speak he would scrunch his shoulders up, rub his hands together like he had some master plan, and speak in an almost inaudible squeaky voice. Whenever designing something to represent himself, or writing anything about his likes, he always listed or drew every video game system known to 10 year old America: Wii, PS2, PS3, Nintendo DS, XBox.

That is who he saw himself as. If I had 4 again in my class, I would try to get him to identify with something real. I would try to get him to care about his work or at least have him redo the work I was disappointed in. I know that next year, another goal will be to not let kids get away with slacking off. No matter how many excuses they have. I will miss the amazingly sweet moments that 4 had when he let his guard down and was able to be himself.