Decades later, elementary school teachers tend to remember their students frozen in time, each child a collection of moments, sweet and savory. From Adam Lanza’s time in second grade, Carole MacInnes remembers an intelligence almost lost in silence.
“He was a little boy in my class in second grade” at Sandy Hook Elementary, said MacInnes, who taught in Newtown for 22 years before retiring three years ago. “A thin little fellow. He was very quiet. There was a quiet depth to him that I couldn’t penetrate.”
The distance was unusual for a second-grader, but Adam was not yet debilitated by his withdrawal. “He didn’t need that much from me,” MacInnes said. “Some kids coming in from first grade need more attention, but academically he was fine. Socially, he got along with the others. I don’t remember him as hostile.”
Nancy Lanza visited MacInnes at parent-teacher conferences and the sessions were unremarkable; mother had no special concerns.
But Lanza’s concern about her son was already evident, said Wendy Wipprecht, whose son, Miles Aldrich, was invited, along with the rest of their first-grade class, to Adam’s birthday party — duckpin bowling at Danbury Duckpin Lanes. Miles and his mother were happy to be invited, in part because Miles, who had autisim diagnosed and had a teaching aide devoted to him, was not always included in class social events.
