The other day I was wearing a shirt with a school insignia and one of my students stopped me to ask about it. He shyly asked me whether I was aware that his family was associated with the school. I was, and I shared some of my own fond memories of our mutual connection. I had been greeting this student almost every day at school, but this was his first attempt at finding something to share with me to initiate a conversation.

Many students move through the school day with a sense that they are completely invisible. All middle schoolers struggle with identity; it is the nature of the age. They arrive as former 5th graders and immediately set about trying to determine who they are going to be. An inquiry-based curriculum encourages students to ask questions, a school full of opportunities presents many choices to be made, and having hundreds of peers provides many examples to observe. Who they are and who they are going to be consume many children's thoughts. This is natural.

That struggle is, for the most part, internal. A child goes about his or her day, interacting with over a hundred individuals, and most likely thinking about who he or she is in relation to each of those they meet. Does he see himself as ill, while appearing to others as healthy? Does she feel lonely, but acts gregarious? Do others see him as an academic superstar, but he feels like he can hardly hold his head above the academic waters? As adults, we talk and speak to our children and see only what they choose to show us. As school leaders, we use more than just our regular interactions to "see" our charges - we talk to teachers, we observe students and their peers in their many settings, and we hear from family and friends. But as all of us know, we became better at hiding the reality of who we are as we get older.

It is in the external manifestation of the inner self that we have the greatest capacity to help our students. I have to believe that, even though I had previously spoken to the boy in the hall, he found something that we shared and spoke up so we could connect. Perhaps he believed that he was invisible until I knew this important fact about him. He definitely wanted me to see him as a unique individual.

I stopped in to our Saturday Academy over the weekend. This is a voluntary program for 8th graders who are in danger of retention; we provide the teachers and the assignments, the students show up on their own. In the two rooms, there were about 20 students, all working hard. I wondered about what their presence says - that they would give up their weekends for months on end rather than complete the work when given. Did they think they were invisible as well, moving through the school day unseen while they struggle with their academic identity as students? Did other factors in their lives, factors unseen in their faces but perhaps all-consuming in their minds, keep them from the daily work of school? These struggling students are not truly invisible to us in their academic work, but why they struggle is still invisible. How do we make their invisibility present - and is that even the right thing to do?

James Albright

PS - I want to make a special shout-out to the entire Deal staff. With the conclusion of the first round of PARCC testing, we can look back and see that the commitment of the entire team to get it right this first time really paid off. While students and teachers are justifiably ready to move on, let's not forget that the cooperation, attention to detail, and perseverance that all in the school community demonstrated made this work. It was an impressive effort. Thank you!