S., who earned himself an earlier post, is paging through his binder for a paper he has lost about nine times. The binder reminds me of a molting adolescent songbird, stuffed to bursting and shedding. (The discovery of clear plastic sheaths to protect individual papers has saved this boy’s hide, and I would recommend that any teacher who has recurring problems with wrinkles, rips, food stains and footprints have an available stack of these in the classroom.)

As he riffles through the binder, without looking up, he asks, “Ms. S, what is that thing where you’re super organized? It’s like a, I don’t know, a disorder?”

I try to put myself into his synapses, and then grab it. “You mean, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?”

“Yeah,” he says matter-of-factly, papers flying everywhere. “I ain’t got none of that.”