How do we do the best for our students? That should always be the question at the top of a teacher’s mind, and for most teachers, it is. And most teachers do indeed do the best they can for their students.

But there is another way to phrase that question. How do we do the best for each and every one of our students on a continuous basis? That is a more difficult nut to crack. I’m not talking about differentiation, personalization, or individuation for each student. That’s more doable, especially if one has been trained in Universal Design for Learning.

I’m talking about something much more fundamental. What if something that is good for one student is terrible for another student?

Many years ago, I had a student who, if her parents had had her tested, would probably have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. She desperately wanted to play with a particular group of girls at recess, but she didn’t quite understand how to interact with other kids. Even with step-by-step guidance from her teachers, she couldn’t do it. She ended up merely annoying the group of girls by trying to—in their perception—invade their social group in the most irritating ways. Her ego took a number of hits because she simply couldn’t understand why they kept rejecting her, and they lost precious social skills development time by dealing with this child’s constant pestering. It was a bit too facile to say to the girls, “Just let her play with you every day” or even “Just let her play with you on occasion.” It really raised some fundamental questions about how to proactively address each student’s needs.

So what’s the solution to the dilemma in which we are not serving all of our children in the best way possible?

Step one is to embrace the idea that Life is Messy. Unlike a 30-minute sitcom or a one-off movie plot, not everything falls neatly into place at the end of the episode. Sometimes, we need to grapple with the fact that we will not be able to do the best for each and every one of our kids at the same time.

Step two is getting started on the hard work. We need to figure out on a case-by-case basis how we can do the best for the largest number of students, while—and this is important—doing no harm to any student. “First do no harm” is a mandate not only for physicians, but for educators also.

In the case of the child who could not make inroads into the social group she wanted, I identified things she liked to do and found a like-minded group of kids for her to hang out with at recess. In this instance, she liked to create works of chalk art on the playground asphalt. We found kids who also liked to do that and others who wanted to do imaginative play using the art as the basis for their stories. It took a bit of time and ingenuity, but eventually, our girl created her own social group, gave up on the other clique and felt good about recess. Simultaneously, the other group of girls maximized their time trying to navigate social situations within their own framework.

Life is Messy: embrace it. And deep within each mess lies a diamond in the rough that we can find when we cleanse off all the mess with some proverbial elbow grease and the right solvents.