ABSTRACT
All teachers have had at least one student who surprised them with the way the student solved a particular problem or demonstrated that he or she understood something. It may have been a child who solved a math problem correctly but differently from the way it was taught. It could have been an adolescent who played Romeo's first scene with the Friar with surprising insight into Romeo's character. Or perhaps it was a shy seventh grader who shocked her classmates by becoming the most articulate voice in leading the group through a web of moral and social dilemmas and resolving a crisis over a case of cheating in the classroom. Why were these students surprising?
