On Monday morning, I taught first period like always.

Room 214. Twenty-eight seventh graders. Fractions.

There's a boy in that class called Jayden. Twelve years old. Big glasses. He'd told me on the first day of school that he was “just bad at math.”

That morning, we were dividing fractions. Jayden sat staring at his paper for ten minutes, his pencil not moving.

I pulled up a chair and sat down beside him.

“I don't get it, Ms. Holloway,” he said. “Just tell me the answer.”

“I'm not going to tell you the answer.”

He groaned.

“But I'm going to sit right here,” I said. “You can figure this out, Jayden. I'll wait.”

He looked at me. Then at the paper.

Three minutes later, he sat up very straight.

“Wait,” he said. “You flip the second one? And then you multiply?”

“Try it.”

He tried it. He got it right. Then he did the next one. And the next.

“I did it,” he said, staring at the page. “I did it by myself.”

He was grinning so wide his glasses moved.

I went to the restroom afterwards and cried a little, the way I do every time.

Then I got on the subway to DUMBO, for a two o'clock meeting.