Allen Graham and lessons in seeing beyond the obvious

Every class has that one particular student who just cannot seem to get it together. For our class in good 'ole Room 400, that student was Allen. Allen Graham came to our class on the first day of summer school, seemingly innocent with a great big smile on his face. We soon discovered that Allen would be one of our most challenging students for our short three weeks of summer school.

Allen was a ball of energy - a big ball of energy. He stood at least as tall as me, if not taller, and was about twice my size. In all honesty, it was hard not to notice him when you stepped into our classroom. Allen had a hard time focusing. A hard time being quiet. A hard time remembering what I had just said. A hard time grasping the academic content. He just had a hard time with everything.

On some days Ms. FeldmanHall, Ms. Wright and I would sit and eat our lunch after classes were over, and talk about what kind of difficulty Allen caused in each of our classes that day. Allen caused quite a bit of frustration. There were, however, those moments when Allen would do something great and surprise us all. The week that I was teaching math, I had the kids take a few timed simple operations tests. Allen, who frequently scored second to lowest on many of his assignments, this time recieved the second to highest score on both of his timed tests. "Allen," I told him quietly, "Did you know that you got 33 out of the 35 questions right on your multiplication mad-minute?" He looked up at me and smiled and simply said, "Really??" It was in that moment that I saw his harsh exterior melt away, and you could just tell that he was pleased with himself. On another wonderous day, Allen insisted that we say our class motto before we began with Math/Lit Hour. Allen, who did not even want to say our motto - I am smart. I work hard. I will be proud. - during the first week of school was now up in front of the class, coaxing all of his peers to shout it out at the top of their lungs!

Clearly, the Allen that Allen portrayed on a day to day basis was not really the Allen Graham that I knew existed inside. I often found myself questioning why he felt that he needed to act out so insistently. Was it lack of attention? Did he really think that he wasn't smart enough? Or perhaps someone else had told him that he wasn't smart.

On the second to last day of school, I brought in cookies for the kids to snack on between final assessments. As I brought the boxes of cookies out, one of the students started to make cruel comments about Allen being overweight and therefore wanting to eat all of the cookies I had brought. I was not surprised, but still totally appalled. I looked over at Allen, and suddenly, there he was. Not Allen the boy who was always getting into trouble, or Allen the kid who could not seem to sit still in his desk, but this was Allen. A boy who must be deeply hurt by all of the comments that had come before.

Reflecting back on why Allen did what he did to give us so much grief this summer, I have come to my final conclusion. Allen is a boy who is in need of someone to love him. And it's not just Allen, but all of my students were crying out in their own way - Look at me! See me! And this is not a selfish cry for attention, but rather the kind of desperation that each of us has felt at one time or another. We simply want to be known and perhaps no one had ever taken the time to know Allen Graham.

As I step into the classroom this fall, I will certainly be laying down the law of what I expect of my students while they are in my class. But I will also be thinking about which one of these students will be my next Allen. I hope that I will see him or her and all of my students for who they really are. Will someone do that for Allen in this coming school year? I am hopeful.