Originally published in TEACH Magazine, June 2026 Issue
By Sidney Shirley
I hadn’t taken my first lap around the room to check for understanding. In fact, I hadn’t even finished explaining the warm-up instructions. But already, there was a hand in the air. For me, that hand belonged to Justin.
Justin wasn’t just fast. He was thinking far beyond sixth-grade math, solving problems in his head before I could even write them down. He spotted patterns most students don’t notice without guided instruction. If I wrote a multi-step problem on the board, he’d already reached a solution before his classmates had copied the first number.
But there was a catch. While his mental math was light-years ahead of his peers, his desk was a disaster zone, and he struggled to put his thoughts on paper or explain his thinking. His work was either incomplete or impossible to follow. The answer might be correct, but the reasoning was difficult to see.
Usually, when teachers encounter a “Justin,” we grab the standard toolkit. We try the enrichment packet or the logic puzzle. We tell them to “go help a neighbour.” I tried those things. They failed. He didn’t need more math. He could already do the math. He needed a teacher who could handle the fact that he was advanced and figure out how to teach him anyway.
The Ego Check
Let’s be honest. It is terrifying when a twelve-year-old has better math skills than you do.
Sixth-grade teachers are used to being the authority. In math, specifically, we are the keepers of the answer. When a student jumps straight to the solution, it’s easy to feel that authority fade and to wonder why you’re even there if he already knows it. But that mindset assumes teaching is just about transferring information. If that were true, Justin could simply watch YouTube and be done with it.
I had to realize that my value wasn’t in knowing more than him. My value was in teaching him how to be a mathematician. Justin had the ability, but he lacked discipline.
He didn’t need me to teach him how to multiply or divide. He needed me to teach him how to communicate, organize his thoughts, justify his reasoning, and slow down long enough for others to follow. Once I let go of the need to be the “smartest person in the room,” I wasn’t intimidated by his intelligence anymore.
Moving Beyond the “Extra Worksheet”
Teachers often mistake differentiation for “more work.” At first, I gave Justin extra worksheets. I assigned him IXL lessons from the eighth-grade curriculum. He could complete them faster than I could find ones to assign, and he got bored.
It was busy work. He knew it was busy work. He would finish early and then disrupt his peers, not because he was defiant, but because he had nothing meaningful to do.
I had to pivot. Instead of asking him for answers, I started asking for explanations. One day, I gave the class a problem:
A rectangle has a length of 12 units and a width of 8 units. If both dimensions are increased by 25%, what is the new area?
Most students worked step-by-step:
- Increase 12 by 25% → 15
- Increase 8 by 25% → 10
- Multiply → 150 square units
Justin raised his hand almost immediately and said, “It’s 150.”
Normally, I would have said, “Show your work.” This time, I said, “Explain why.”
He paused. For the first time, he had to put his quick mental math into words, and that was difficult for him. After much deliberation, he eventually said that increasing both dimensions by 25% doesn’t increase the area by 25%—it increases it by more, because both factors are growing. He described it as “stretching in two directions.” With some prompting, we turned that idea into a clearer explanation.
Justin’s struggle in that moment was a good thing. He had to slow down and turn the ideas in his head into clear sentences. He had to communicate. That was the work he actually needed.
The Power of “I Don’t Know”
The most freeing moment of the year came one Tuesday when Justin asked a question I didn’t know the answer to. In my early teaching days, I would have panicked or brushed it off. I might have redirected the conversation or given a vague answer just to maintain control. Instead, I said, “I don’t know. Let’s figure it out.”
The room didn’t fall apart. I didn’t lose the class’s respect. In fact, the opposite happened. All of the students became curious. The question became a shared challenge instead of a test of authority. We explored it together, made guesses, tested ideas, and revised our thinking.
Suddenly, I wasn’t the answer key. I was a model of curiosity. And Justin noticed. He stopped seeing me as the gatekeeper holding him back and started seeing me as a partner in thinking. That shift mattered more than any worksheet I could have given him.
Flipping the Script
So I decided to start using his strengths more intentionally and gave him a new role: coach. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t take over. He could only communicate with his words, using the power of speech to guide his fellow peers towards the answers that came so easily to him.
At first, this frustrated him. He was used to solving everything himself, quickly and efficiently. Now he had to slow down, explain each step, and respond to questions from his peers. But over time, something changed. He became more patient. His explanations became clearer. He started anticipating where others might get confused.
His classmates, in turn, became more engaged because they were doing the work themselves rather than merely copying his answers. He wasn’t just the fastest thinker in the room anymore. He was becoming a communicator. That role gave him purpose.
The Takeaway
By the end of May, Justin hadn’t just learned more math. He had learned how to explain a complex idea to others. He had learned how to organize his thinking. He had learned that being right isn’t the same as being understood.
And I learned something too. I learned that teaching isn’t about hoarding knowledge. It isn’t about always having the answer or maintaining the illusion of authority. It is about creating a space where all students—including the advanced ones, who may think they already know everything—are still able to learn and grow.
When you have a student who is smarter than you, don’t try to cap their ceiling to match your own. Admit what you don’t know. Shift the goal from getting answers to building understanding. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to be the best teacher for the student who is.
*Student names have been changed.
Sidney Shirley, MEd, is a middle grades STEM educator and EdD candidate at Brenau University.
