The Difference in Wandering and Wondering

In my second year of teaching I taught two groups of eight grade students. These classes could not possibly be any more different. Between four and eight young men stared at me, anxiously waiting for 3:00 pm, hoping I would do back flips and say "waka flockla flame" during fourth block. Eight students waited patiently for the morning news to end and for their warm up to be posted, eight students craved routine, responded brilliantly to positive praise, and while eight students fell on every bit of content I spoke, one was busy wandering the hallway.

Damon swayed his entire head as he walked in circles around the school hallways as if he had on headphones and couldn't get enough of whatever was playing in his invisible ipod. When he felt it was appropriate and was in just enough time to not get in serious trouble, Damon swayed into the classroom, pulled out his notebooks and put his head down.

It was a record if Damon said more than twenty words in any one class. I struggled with what my intent was going to be at the end of the semester when grades had to be turned in as Damon's work habits were similar to his vocabulary usage -- assignments were turned in few and far between. He didn't mesh well with the peers in this class. Damon would have socially fit in with the fourth block boys. Had he been with that group, the end of this story may have been different, and that would have been a tragedy.

Much to my surprise, Damon would decide time and time again to show me what he knew. When absolutely no one would answer a question, he would. When we played trivia games, he won, when I used multiple choice questions on the final exam, Damon passed it with flying colors.

I knew Damon liked me, even though his constant tardiness and lack of eye contact masked it. Damon, like Jared, hung out in the back of the line trying feverishly to get away from my classroom's image issues. However, unlike Jared, Damon wouldn't comply with my "get in the front of the line rule" so I insisted on holding his hand while walking in the hall. 95% of the time, I wasn't holding his hand, but I was learning about Damon and that in fact, he was learning about science and social studies.

June 2010. End of grade tests results came out. Nine students in my first block class made high growth, of those nine, one earned a passing score. Damon. So while I was concerned that Damon was constantly tardy, never made eye contact, put his head down, brushed his waves, and wrote in fragments, Damon was concerned about the Revolutionary War, Animal Cells, Triangular Trade, and the ocean levels. I thought Damon was busy wandering the halls, in actuality he was busy wondering about the content in room 110.