Unexpected consequence

I have a student I will call Max.  He is hard.  He spends most of the day in special ed. and when he is in the classroom, he takes a disproportionate amount of my energy.  Most of the students tolerate him and his quirks and disruptions.  I would not say any of them are his friends, but they tolerate him.

Some of them are less patient.  Another student, I will call Nate, struggles to give Max a pass.  He engages in pointless arguments and criticisms and eggs Max on, which is not helpful.

I made a deal with Nate that if would leave Max alone, not talk to him or mess with him in any way, he could play with Legos during read aloud time (the rest of the students do handwriting then.)

Nate agreed and it mostly has been better, but he still aggravates Max and the situation from time to time.  (And Max does his share of aggravating.)

Yesterday, I put Max's picture behind the elf door.  First thing in the morning, the class huddled around the door.  Some of them said, "Let Teacher open it!"

But Nate, who seldom does what the rest of the class thinks is right, opened the door himself.

They saw Max's picture and one of them asked, "Why did you put his picture in?"

I asked, "Why not?"

They had the good grace to accept that as answer enough.

Right before lunch, we opened the mailbox they had been surreptisiouly packing with tiny notes.  There were three notes from three sweet girls.  They were notes to Max.  They told him he was a good classmate and they liked him.

It straight up melted my heart.

I called Max over to my desk and read the notes to him.  He was amazed and sort of confused, sure they were written by the elf even though the girls had signed their names.

Later, there was a note on Max's desk.  It said, "I think you're great.  From:  Someone."

Everyone wondered who it could be from.  I suspected Nate, because I had seen him cutting some paper earlier.  I glanced at him and he knew that I knew and he half smiled and nodded at me.

Max was beside himself.  "It's from the elf!" He insisted.  "He's somewhere in this room!"

Nate delivered 3-4 more notes through the afternoon.  I caught him in the act and he smiled at me.  No one else in the class knew and that was exactly what Nate wanted.

Max was elated.  He can't read well and he demanded I read him the letters.  They were all very kind and purposely mysterious.

I'm not telling you any of this because I did anything to make it happen.  I deserve zero credit.  I just want the record to show that Christmas is magical and children sort of are too.