One of the art super stars at Malcolm X Academy

It seems to be a given that in any classroom, there will be one kid who has a harder time than other kids staying focused on his painting. It is less often true that the kid with attention deficit finds a way to calm himself down and stay on task.

So I was surprised one day to find L. in the back of the classroom quietly working on a painting. L. is not a bad kid, he’s just easily distracted, but even so, I found myself wondering if his silence was the sign of some wrong doing. I sidled up to him and saw he was mixing colors with more concentration that I’d seen him display in all our classes combined. Not wanting to break the spell, I left him alone, but I kept him in my peripheral vision in case something changed.

Nearly five minutes went by before L. picked his head up and announced. “Hey Everybody! Guess what! Red and blue and purple are brothers!” The kid discovered color theory on his own! What an awesome experience; way more awesome than if I had showed him.