Like so many others, being remote didn’t work for him. He had been an online student for many weeks, but this cycle he had returned to school with others who had recognized (or whose parents had decided) that being at home was a disaster.
Now that he was back, things were going better. He would ask questions quietly when he was working on problems, just as he used to do. And he would check his work against the answers posted on the board to see if he was doing it right.
On this particular day, the students had the whole period to review for an upcoming quiz. There were eight problems — not many, but half of them required (horrors!) factoring. He walked to the board several times, looking at the answers and then returning to his seat.
“How’d you do?” I asked each time. He would turn towards me and nod with a slight smile on his face. He got the right answer every time.
Yes, things were going much better.