Day 23 - Ben Wheeler, 6, Student

BenWheeler, image by MSN

Ben Wheeler wasn't really such a troublesome student - he was just her biggest challenge this year. Dawn had seen many worse. Unlike typical first grade discipline problems, Ben wasn't violent. He wasn't a bully. He wasn't late. He wasn't a thief. He always did his homework. But. . .

Ben had a way of following instructions while at the same time pushing to find where the edges are. For example, when Dawn assigned her students the task of bringing in pictures of objects that began with specific letter of the alphabet, most of her students seemed already to have developed a healthy sense of competition, each trying to bring in more or bigger or more colorful pictures. Ben alternated between bringing in just one picture or a dozen pictures of the same object.

Ben was also unable to sit still for more than 10 minutes. While he never got up from his desk without permission, his energy level seemed to spill over so that something would drop from his desk or fly off across the room. Then his hand would go up to ask for permission to pick up the book or collect the pencil. It was that politeness that made it so difficult to figure out how to respond to Ben's behavior.

In contrast to Allison, Ben was always willing to volunteer for show-and-tell. But Dawn was never sure just what Ben would say, so she rarely called on him. She had talked with Ben's parents about the inappropriate story Ben had shared during show-and-tell about the dinner party his parents had hosted. Dawn was certain the other students hadn't understood why Ben's parents would be embarrassed, but six-year-olds were so much more worldly now than they were 25 year ago when Dawn began teaching.

Dawn Hochsprung, image by MSN

During art, Ben always seemed to get his paint or paste or fingers onto someone else's project. And he was always so sorry. But where Dawn found his apologies almost endearing, she recognized that his classmates weren't ready to say "never mind." Instead, some of his classmates were clearly annoyed with Ben although Dawn's classroom ground rules that prohibited speaking ill of anyone were still holding. Dawn saw eyes roll a couple of times, and she wondered how far beyond the school grounds her rules worked.

And that was the attention-seeking, disruptive behavior Dawn was concerned about.

Because Dawn began each school year lining up the children in their seats in alphabetical order, Ben was just ahead of Allison at the beginning of the school year. They were the last two in the row furthest to the right of her classroom, right next to the window. But Ben spent too much time staring out the window when he should have been reading or doing other work. At the end of the first 9-week term, Dawn placed him at the opposite side of the room. So now the two students Dawn was most concerned about were on the opposite sides of the room. To keep her eye on them, she was certain to keep her eye on all those in between as well.