I didn’t know it, but I did.
It was just before what we would call our daily morning meetings. As sixth graders, we started our school day sitting together in a circle as a class, Indian style. I guess sitting like that in itself is worth commemorating because I’ve just been made aware that style of sitting apparently no longer exists. It’s now called criss cross applesauce now, which sounds all sorts of absurd to me.
A morning meeting is pretty straightforward. Instead of talking non-stop about the N Sync VMA performance from two months ago or if you were like me, the Newgrounds assassination short that let you shoot up all the Gap kids, we would share somewhat more intellectually engaging stories on topics decided by our teacher Mrs. Stephens. This was a pretty good way to jump start our day before going off on a rigorous academic day of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy.
The dynamic of that classroom was as you would imagine. Kids had their cliques and there was a definite hierarchy of who was considered cool and who wasn’t. I’m sure that you’re well aware of how sixth graders— or rather kids in general—can be pretty shitty. But now that I reflect back on it, the kids in my class weren’t the shittiest in the world on the shitty scale. I mean yes, the guys gave each other bro nods and snickered when Mrs. Stephens’s nipples poked through her dress and girls… okay I had no idea what girls were doing or thinking about then. I even had to make up that N Sync example at the beginning of this paragraph. My point being that kids didn’t know much better, and to our credit, Mrs. Stephens was pretty bangin’. Nevertheless, I’m still surprised that how well received these morning meetings were.
The staple of the morning meeting was the agenda: the plan for today’s meeting was written on a 22” x 28” flip board, usually with a question with empty space bubbles underneath for kids to respond to. Sometimes it would be something along the lines of, “If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead, fictional or real, who would it be?” (Alfred Pennyworth) Other times it would be a simple poll like “Pizza vs. Fried Chicken” (Fried Chicken.) Interactivity and engagement in the analog age! One day, I asked Mrs. Stephens whether I could do it for a particular meeting. I wrote the shit out of that agenda. Injected energy and liveliness into the words, decorated the board with different colors and even included an inspirational quote from Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul. I would frame that fucking poster if I still had it.
This is the prestige… The question I wrote down for the day?
“What is your AIM Screen Name?”
I wrote the agenda because I wanted to holla at the girls in my class but had no idea how to get in contact with them. I knew that I had game (I didn’t) and if only I could get them to talk to me, I would be able to charm their face off (I couldn’t). I think at that time, I had maybe five people on my buddy list. The “Shoutoutz” section of my info was pathetic with or without sticky caps. This was the perfect ploy. I wasn’t going to be the most popular class, but you bet your sweet ass I was going to have more people to chat with while I surfed the web and watched WWF (second screen experience, anyone?)
Does the perfect ploy ever go well? Maybe I was too obvious, writing the screen names down blatantly in front of everyone, but my question were met with little enthusiasm with a low response rate—and worse yet, I got people’s AOL screen names. You know even if they had AOL that people still downloaded AIM for all the extra cool features.
At that point, I thought, “The world would be better if people and things were more accessible and transparent.”
Okay, that wasn’t exactly it and I merely thought “lol” after every sentence written in green font was going to charm the person at the other end of the screen but the sentiment was there. I felt the need tell stories, no matter how nonsensical they were. I wanted to share and had no one to share it to. If I were a brilliant twelve year old, I would have conceptualized Facebook right there… or less brilliant, MyFace (trademarked TacoCorp.)
There’s that quote about luck, opportunity and preparation that has been plastered on corporate posters around the world and passed around more often than the Michael Jordan urban legend on being cut from his high school JV team. The reason why I decided to rehash this story is to remind myself how the really good ideas solve the really simple, and thus most important problems. More importantly, to keep looking at the problems that need solving.
As a side note, a big shoutout to E.H. Greene Intermediate School class of 2001. It’s been a while. Hope everyone is doing well. The last time I checked (read: stalked), a lot of you are republican and married.
