Simone
Round-faced, with blonde hair cut short, a sturdy build—Simone looks like the typical easygoing kid until you notice his eyes. Those brown pupils are always darting: up, down, left, right, then up and down again. They reveal the constant restlessness that erupts in sudden bursts of anger, loud protests, reckless gestures. But what makes his schoolwork so difficult is his inability to concentrate, to follow even a moderately complex line of thought. He seems to grasp something in a flash, but a flash later he's gone again—unable to pick up the thread, to organize his ideas, to choose the right answer. He appears calm and perfectly at ease only when he's drawing what he likes, or when he's preparing a puppet show.
One day, trying to understand him better, I told him I wanted to speak with his mother. He noted it right away in his diary, but during recess he came up to me.
«Teacher, I can send my mother to you (sic!) but don't mind if she says strange things because sometimes she has to go to the care home».
Franco
Franco is repeating a year—one of several brothers who've all repeated, destined for more of the same. Dark-haired, muscular, proud of his strength and his «toughness,» he has a reputation as a ringleader, quick with his fists, a bully, generous to those under his protection. In class he's like a caged animal: he sneers, throws sideways glances, waiting for his moment to crack a crude joke or let out some noise or war cry that makes his classmates laugh and drives the teachers crazy. Studying is out of the question; if something interests him, he does everything to hide it, speaking up to put in his two cents—seemingly by accident—but then, if his comment is praised, he can barely hide his satisfaction. If someone contradicts or punishes him, he yells, threatens, turns the accusations around on other classmates.
I've noticed his disruptive actions and his aggression are directly proportional to his academic struggles. They peak during English class, where he knows nothing, but they're much rarer when we're reading, discussing events, having a real conversation—moments when he can speak up on more equal footing with the others. I wonder: how much could his behavior change? How much calmer might he be if his knowledge were just a bit more solid and broader?
Federica
Federica is in first-year middle school for the second year in a row. She seems to have real difficulty with abstract concepts and expresses herself with a lot of uncertainty. She frustrates me because she regularly contradicts my sense of who she is. I used to worry she felt sidelined by the other kids and I'd step in to prevent it, but I realized I might be annoying her—she's the one who sometimes chooses to sit at a desk off by itself, who decides to walk alone during recess, watching the others. Yet that doesn't stop her from monopolizing attention in the afternoon with her volleyball, organizing the teams for the game.
I was trying to protect her—not calling on her when the topic seemed too hard, avoiding asking her to read homework that looked particularly difficult. But one morning, faced with exactly that, she threw her notebook on the ground crying: «...but I worked so hard on this, if you don't let me read it, how will anyone know I did the work!»
I thought a classmate was bothering her with his stupid jokes and his bullying attitude, but when Federica wrote about her classmates in an essay, she revealed that «Carlo is a funny guy, he makes me laugh and he's nice too...». Maybe, dear Federica, instead of all that protection, what you need from me is a more straightforward approach—less careful, but somehow more engaging and challenging? She knows nothing about history, but she understands the human heart. The other day, exasperated by Carlo's usual antics, I went off on a tirade while the class sat in stunned silence. But in a pause of my lecture came Federica's quiet voice: «...what patience you need, teacher!...» and the tension just melted into laughter.
Carla
Small, slight, with very attentive eyes, Carla has chosen silence. For some years now, silence is her defense, the magic cloak that protects her from difficult questions, from inquiries into her private life. But since when? No one knows for sure. Even her mother speaks vaguely about «the last years of elementary school.» Maybe it started when some family troubles sparked the neighbors' and classmates' curiosity? Or when what teachers asked her became too hard to understand and explain? Or when she realized that classmates laugh if you always get it wrong, but that constant silence makes them nervous? So Carla, through silence, protects herself from humiliation; by pretending she can't hear, she shields her family. But at the same time, she cuts herself off from connection with others, hiding her opinions, her preferences, her dislikes. She sits in class, but she's not part of it, and bit by bit her classmates forget her. Then one day, someone who accepts her silences without giving up on talking to her discovers that Carla can still speak—that in a very quiet voice and simple language she'll tell you about her kitten, the funny child she saw on the street, a TV show she watched, all sorts of things, as long as there's no talk of school or personal matters. It takes so little—a wrong word, a question meant to test whether she knows something, whether she can repeat it—and then the silence becomes an impenetrable shield again.
Maybe one day, if someone doesn't give up talking to her, when family troubles don't weigh so heavily, or when school doesn't ask for things beyond her reach, silence will reveal itself for what it really is: not a disease, not a psychological oddity, but a defense invented by a frightened and proud child—a defense that has simply outlived its purpose.