A language arts classroom can be a difficult place for young learners who struggle to sit quietly. Tradition tells us that in a school setting, reading and writing requires focus, stillness, and calm. Students should noiselessly be taking in knowledge by reading and understanding words, churning out paragraphs, keeping with the rituals and habits of learning to read and write.
As a young teacher years ago, I learned this does not always work.
My second year as a language arts teacher, I had a student who challenged everything I knew and expected about how students should act in class. Kenny showed up on my sixth-period roster. On the first day of school, I knew he would be trouble. He bounded into the room and headed straight to the back row of seats, hurling his binder onto the desk and fairly jumping into the attached chair. He had bright red hair and a face smothered in freckles. He wore baggy, sagging jeans and a T-shirt that read “I’m Kind of a Big Deal.” He bubbled over with energy. His legs jiggled nonstop, and his arms crossed and uncrossed constantly. He had bright eyes that constantly roved the room, looking for something to use as a distraction, trying to find a way to be a rascal.
Kenny infuriated me. I wanted him to sit still. I wanted him to stay in his seat, keep his folders neat, and wait to be called on. His constant shout-outs distracted me and my other students. He seemed to have no control over his body and was oblivious to any expectation of structure or stillness. He didn’t respond to any of my frustrated pleas for him to stop.
Independent work during workshop time was the worst. While other students quietly read or discussed their writing, he would literally fall out of his seat spontaneously, or jam into a classmate’s desk on his way to the pencil sharpener. Random objects fell out of his binder and onto the floor. His binder seemed to spew crumpled, ragged papers. He lost things.
I couldn’t blame him. I, too, was lost.
I had no idea how to manage him. I grew to dread sixth period. He wasn’t mean or sneaky—he just couldn’t stop jiggling. I tried scolding. I tried yelling. I sent him out to the hallway, then to the guidance counselor, then to the principal. I gave him detentions. I called his parents. I made him eat his lunch alone in the corner of my classroom. I wrote up behavior plans. I tried to “catch him being good.” I bribed him—candy, a homework pass, the promise of a pizza party if he could get through a class without needing redirection.
Nothing worked. He seemed to defy my every attempt to make him a model student.
I realized that the dread I felt each day came from a place of fear. I was scared of Kenny.
Since he was so unpredictable and impulsive, I knew I had no control over his classroom behaviors. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to teach him a single thing about reading and writing. The only way I felt comfortable as a teacher—and the way I judged my success—was if I looked out at my classroom and saw 25 seventh graders staring at me like quiet, sweet angels, or quietly reading at their desks, or bent silently over a neat piece of paper and churning out eloquent paragraphs.
But Kenny challenged all that. With him in my class, I felt like a complete failure as a teacher. A scared, uncomfortable, reluctant teacher.
There was only one thing to do. I would give up. I would greet him as he entered the room, and I would bid him a smiling goodbye as he left the class, but I would stop insisting that he stay in his seat and sit still. I would just let him do whatever his body wanted. He could stand up and wander around willy-nilly; he could crouch in the corner to do his reading if he chose; he could go to the pencil sharpener, or the trash can, or my desk, or over to the windows whenever he wanted. I would just keep on with my teaching.
At the beginning of class on a cold November afternoon, I called Kenny to my desk and told him I was going to stop scolding him. “Do what you need to do,” I said. “I’m just going to keep teaching. Okay?”
He stared at me, flabbergasted. He had no idea how to respond. He thought a moment, then said, “Really? I’m not going to get in trouble anymore?”
“That’s right,” I said, shrugging. “We’ll see if it works.” I lifted my hand, and he gave me a wary high five.
I rose from my desk and went to the front of the room to tell the rest of the class about my plan. “I’m not going to waste any more time being mad at Kenny,” I announced. “I am going to let him do whatever he wants. Okay?” They, too, just stared at me. They all knew Kenny well; over the years, they had watched teacher after teacher try to cope with him. They already knew how to tune him out—they just couldn’t believe I was going to do it, too.
Lo and behold, Kenny transformed himself.
He didn’t wander about as I thought he would. It was evident he was able to focus better on his reading and writing. He did spend most of class standing, but he stayed close to his desk. As he read, he held his book in splayed hands and shifted from one foot to the other, quiet and immersed. Occasionally he did swirl into his seat, but he soon stood again. When the class did their writing, he leaned over his desk with his hips swaying back and forth. For the first time all year, he was focused. He raised his hand and shared insightful thinking about our reading and offered fantastic ideas for writing prompts. I was thrilled to discover how funny, intelligent, and dear he was. I was delighted to find how much I really, really liked him.
Over the years, my Kenny experience has never truly left my mind—he taught me what really matters in the classroom. It’s not how quiet and orderly the room is; instead, the only thing that matters is that students learn. And they all learn so differently, it’s impossible to expect them all to conform.
Because of Kenny, I changed everything about myself as a teacher. My desks were no longer in tight, straight rows—they were clustered and scattered. Students were free to move about. If they needed to jiggle and move, that was just fine. My classroom became less organized—but far more relaxed. The paradox was striking: As I unwound and let my classroom become less rigid, we all grew more motivated, comfortable, and successful. I was more effective as a teacher, and my students were more effective learners.
In the process, I realized I am a lot like Kenny. I learn better if I can move. I have always bounced out of bed in the morning well before the sun and don’t stop moving until I collapse, exhausted, into my bed at night. At work, I can’t pay attention longer than a few minutes if I can’t shift about or adjust how I’m sitting. If I’m forced to sit still for a few hours, I have to remind myself not to shake and jiggle. In professional meetings, I’ve learned to be quick to offer to be the one to take notes, or capture the group’s thinking on chart paper, or “report out” for the group. Just like Kenny, I need an outlet for the restlessness that never goes away.
I also realize how much I am like Kenny as a reader and writer. I can read and write silently and be still for a while, but then I need to get up to move. I get a glass of water. I call a friend. I unload the dishwasher or fold the laundry. For some reason, it refreshes and refocuses me.
I am grateful to Kenny for teaching me to just let it be—and for helping me understand that a lot of people, myself included, can succeed if they are given the freedom to move as they learn.
Postscript for those who wonder: No, Kenny never came back and thanked me. I have not seen him since he jiggled his way into my heart from the back row of my classroom. But I don’t need to connect with him: I know I was a teacher who understood him, and he was a learner who understood me. It’s me who needs to thank him—and thank him profusely, for what he taught me.
