Settling in

A week and a half into the school year, ICS is hitting a rhythm. Students are settling into their new classes, and those who at first worked to attract teachers' notice are finding a place among their peers.

Turns out, the boy who, on Day 1, introduced himself to third-grade teacher Ann Griffith as a "brainiac" who really should be teaching equations to the class, somewhat overestimated his powers. As he gets more comfortable, she says, he las less to prove, and more luck finding friends. The first-grader who spent her first day defying teachers, taking off her shoes and making her gums bleed with string pulled off of her school uniform, bumped her head Monday and ran crying to teacher Michael Sanders.

And this week, the new boy in Sherry Forbes's third-grade class - who arrived, the sole stranger in a room of kids who knew each other, chatty, articulate, and eager to talk about the language and culture of his homeland, Eritrea - figured something out. In a class assignment about the attitudes emphasized by the school's International Baccalaureate curriculum - empathy, independence, and respect among them - he made a big yellow placemat that declared: "I am confidence."