Paley: Reframing “Slow Learners”

{speaking of a child struggling in her class} [he] is not a slow learner. He is a cautious researcher. He takes each new idea and collects data on its application until he is satisfied that he knows every response and reaction it might receive in the outside world. He expects mistakes and wants them to occur in his own controlled setting.

-Vivian Gussin Paley, from The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter: the Uses of Storytelling in the Classroom