As I pack up the last few boxes in my kitchen, I realize a few things. 1) I have a freakish amount of lunch pales and 2) I'm insanely good at having a bazillion (notice the really large fake number for emphasis) things happening all at once. In other words, I'm the queen of overcommiting. I've gotten better. Years back, in the days of high school I was pretty much out of control. Snow boarding club? Yea I should definitley be a part of that, and the VP of it as well! School musical? Why not? FBLA? Sign me up! At least now I keep my commitments limited to things I'm interested in!Until last week.
One of my very interesting "case-load" kids, you've heard of him before-he's the one that talks of video games and comics that he creates in his head and on paper during class, has a hard time socially. A wise man once said, "Sure, I could be first chair jazz flute in the band, but is that gonna help me climb the social ladder? I think not." Connection here? Possibly. Some are just made to be in that first chair wearing a plumed hat and chin strap while others perhaps fit in better playing Varsity football. Is one better than the other? Well...yes. Kidding. I think you see where this is headed... Moving along, Comic Book Kid loves creating comic books that are loosely based on his favorite video games more than anything. CBK just cannot get enough of this virtual world. It's really fun attempting to explain that spending all evening conquering the last level of Zelda lacks in validity as an alternative to doing ones homework. I personally have learned to pick my battles.
I've tried everything from stealthily flashing cards that say words like "Focus" "Put that away" and "Eyes on the board" to very seriously looking past the black framed glasses of the child, into his eyes and saying "Okay for real, you need to put your comics in your binder!" He has recruited another one of my own, one whom I love dearly (teachers have favorites, it's just the reality of the situation) and now both of them create comic books...during class!
I had a brilliant idea last week. What if CBK heads up a Comic Book club?! They can meet at lunch once a week, socialize a bit and have conversations with other Comic Book/Video Game enthusiasts! This would secretly be a ploy to stop him from working on his comics during class. Duh. I brought up the idea and without any emotion at all (standard) he replied, "Yea, we got a club, it's called VG Comics." I refused to lose my enthusiasm and told him we could make it school wide, instead of the current members which consisted of him and only 2 others. They could even meet in a classroom at lunch once a week...this is big time. Usually we exile the kids from the inner parts of the building during lunch, some things are sacred. I got it all worked out, actually saw an ounce of excitement from the guy, and received many encouraging emails from other teachers that knew of students that'd quickly become admitted to the club. One of those emails also informed me that every "club" on campus needs a "sponsor." Guess who that sponsor is.
Every Friday at lunch you can find me nerding out with the creative minds of "VG Comics." I anticipate many a blog post birthing from this commitment.
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