Planting Planets

Eeeee!

After weeks of hanging out with 6th graders, today we were finally matched to one! My mentee is so cool. I mean, like, really cool. While he was telling me more about himself, I just wanted to grab him by the shoulders and say, “do you know how cool you are? Are you seeing this in yourself?” I decided not to do that as that might freak him out. He’s shy and nervous, and writes rap songs in a journal. His journal is filled with writing. One of our goals is that he lets me read some of it.

Today when we were talking, I noticed that if I ask the right questions, he forgets that he’s shy for a second and talks a lot and gets excited and makes eye contact, but then he remembers that he’s shy and clams up again averting his eyes. He told me about his friend with the alien head who makes fun of him. He tells him he’s in the dumb math class and that when he plays football he “catches like this” and then he started waving his arms around in the air. This alien-headed child sounds a bit like a bully if you ask me. When I inquired about what an alien head is, he explained that it’s just the kind of head that is big and long. He talked about it like it was a completely normal and universally understood way to describe a head. This kid is funny and awesome, I’m so excited! EEEEE!