Shipwreck on a math test.

The Lens You Use Changes the Student You See

Years ago, I worked with a student who was taking a math test.

At some point during the test, he stopped answering the questions.

Instead, he started drawing.

First, he drew a fish.

Underneath it he wrote:
“I’m sorry.”

A few minutes later he drew something else and wrote:
“I’m stressed.”

And then, on the last page of the test, he drew a shipwreck.

His teacher was extremely upset. She called his mother and explained that he had been drawing all over his test instead of completing the problems. To her, it felt disrespectful.

But when I looked at the same test, I saw something very different.

I saw a student trying to communicate in the only way he knew how.

He told his teacher he was sorry.
He told her he was stressed.
And then he drew a shipwreck.

I’m not sure a student could communicate overwhelm more clearly than that.

A quick executive function pause

Executive functions are the brain processes that help us manage cognitive and emotional demands.

When students are under too much pressure, their prefrontal cortex cannot support the skills needed for:

• sustained attention
• problem solving
• emotional regulation
• continuing effort through difficulty

When that system becomes overwhelmed, students often stop working.

Sometimes they shut down.
Sometimes they avoid.
Sometimes they communicate in ways adults don’t immediately recognize.

What looks like defiance or disrespect may actually be a student whose executive function system has reached its limit.

But the lens behind the interpretation changes everything about how we respond.

The Lens Changes Everything

Executive function does not just change the strategies we use with students.

It changes the way we see them.

Two educators can look at the same moment and reach completely different conclusions depending on the lens they bring to the situation. One might see a student ruining a test. Another might see a student quietly asking for help.

The behavior is the same.

But the understanding behind it changes everything about what happens next.

A Question Worth Asking

The next time you see a student stop working, shut down, or behave in a way that does not make immediate sense, pause for a moment and ask yourself:

What might this student be trying to communicate?

Not every signal will look as obvious as a shipwreck drawn across a math test.

Sometimes the signal looks like avoidance.
Sometimes it looks like procrastination.
Sometimes it looks like a student who suddenly stops trying.

But very often, those moments are not about disrespect or motivation at all.

They are about a brain that has reached its limit and does not yet know how to ask for help.

When we begin looking through an executive function lens, behavior stops being the problem we are trying to fix.

Instead, it becomes information that helps us understand what a student may need next.