He sits with his pencil in one hand and his furrowed brow in the other. There's no glimmer in his eye; I see only desperation. In front of him, there's a math problem that he could have solved last year but today looks foreign to him. He looks up at me. "Can I use a calculator?" I hesitate. This time it's my brow furrowing as I internally wrestle with myself. He's clearly not retaining what he studied last year. Where have I gone wrong? If I let him use a calculator, is he really going … [Read more...]