The Kids Who Create (and Blow Up) Worlds (and Cover Them With Lava)

“Okay..Mr. Leif, the first thing you have to do is make a shelter. If you don’t make a shelter, the mobs will kill you (creepers, most likely, but ghasts, zombies, spiders, slime, and silverfish are also out there). Just use your pick to dig through the trees, and grab the logs when they appear. Use those logs to make sticks. Use those sticks to make a crafting table.“

“And remember, Mr. Leif, you have to kill a cow. If you don’t kill a cow, you’re not going to have food, which means you’ll starve. Also, you’re going to need the the leather that you can make from the dead cow.”

These are the exact words spoken by one of my students during seventh grade lunch recess, which takes place during seventh period (that would be 12:36 to 1:20, for those who don’t have our school schedule memorized). 

This student was trying to help me stay alive. I was, after all, playing the “Survival Mode” of Minecraft, not the “Creative Mode,” which, for some reason, all of my students tell me to avoid at all costs. 

So it’s survival mode. Yes. I must survive.

And I’m realizing that it’s going to take a long, long time for me to have the slightest idea how to survive. 

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. For those you who know about Minecraft, just…just skip a whole bunch of paragraphs. You don’t need to read it. Go play whatever video game your parents let you play.

Okay, now…for those of you who’ve never heard of Minecraft (meaning, I’m going to guess, an awful lot of parents who are utterly bewildered by their child’s fascination with Minecraft):

“Minecraft” is a low res game (the graphics are blocky, as if this is a game from the late 1980s), and it’s a first person game in which you build things as opposed to shoot at them. You start out with a simple tool, and with this tool—with which you dig resources, starting with wood—you gradually build more tools. Having then built tools, you build a dwelling, and as you keep doing this, you start acquiring tools that allow you to collect ever more specialized resources, which in turn allow you to build more specialized things. 

Or, to put it another way:

Minecraft is a game where you go from prehistoric to civilized human, and, once you’re there, gives you vast power over the world you’ve built.

I still haven’t really played “Minecraft,” but I’ve watched my seventh graders play it, and I’ve watched them explore it, and I’ve watched them establish domination over their world, and furnish it with incredible structures (there are single-player versions, where you’re the only settler, and, therefore, God). 

I find this incredibly cool, but I must point out something: 

Every boy who plays this game likes to blow things up, and/or cover everything with lava.  

Every last one of them. 

Yes, you can create gunpowder in this world, and it seems that once boys have built their virtual palace and gathered all of their earthly needs, their legacy, when people in this Minecraft World write about them, will be “He was a cruel God who blew up endless things, and covered whole cities with lava.” 

Yes, I have seen an entire mountain covered in lava. 

I believe the student who did this said something like “Mr. Leif, come over and look at the mountain that I covered in lava.” 

This is what middle school boys would do to the world if they had dominion over it. 

Which is why I think girls should play Minecraft. 

To be sure, I know that many girls enjoy blowing things up, and probably enjoy the prospect of covering the earth with lava. 


It's just that I think girls would do other things besides blow things up and cover them with lava. I'm sure they would create certain zones in this world where you could blow things up (and cover them in lava), but then have other parts of this world in which people exchanged ideas on such topics as “what else is there to do besides blow things up and cover the world with lava?”

Soon girls would, I don't know, be organizing virtual dances in these worlds, and everyone would immediately feel comfortable dancing, no one would be awkward. Every style of dancing would be in fashion at these dances, so even jumping up and down would be an acceptable dance move. 

In this virtual world, many male and female Minecraft players would meet while jumping up and down at one of these virtual dances. Then they would each think that the other looked cool just jumping up and down, and would subsequently start to hang out together in the real world as well. Aw...

Then they each build worlds in which, from a distance, you would see that the entire world was a carefully designed mosaic portrait of that person they met at that virtual dance, a portrait that you could only see when you traveled through virtual outer space. 

And of course, by this point, having created space travel in this virtual world instead of blowing things up, girls would create whole galaxies of worlds whose inhabitants live in harmony and dress well. 

And the boys in these worlds do other things besides blow things up and cover them in lava. 

So now, perhaps in this other place, girls would finally get a chance to show a guy the right way to build a world. 

The Kid With the Neon Green Racing Flats (Not Running Shoes, Racing Flats)

"They are RACING FLATS,  Mr. Leif, not running shoes."

So said the email from the owner of the racing flats (not running shoes) shown in the photo above. Said student would also like me to add that she plays the cello, is a high honors student (not simply an honors student, she would like me to clarify, but a high honors student), took Math Research (which entails so much more work than the general research class that I teach that they really should call it Honors Research, or, more appropriately, College Level Research), and, presumably, solved the country's debt crisis before lunchtime.

I have written a paragraph about this student, and already, I am tired.

I suspect that this student does not sleep. Or, quite possibly, said student is like rechargeable batteries, where she talks (a lot) and moves around (a lot) and does (a lot) of things (well), and then, quite suddenly, says "Tired, must sleep," and simply lapses into a coma-like sleep for a couple of hours, after which her eyes snap awake, and she says something like "Awake. Day begins," and once more starts doing (a lot) of things (well).

I was not like this in middle school.

Okay, to be sure, I did stuff. I acted in shows. I played drums in the band and orchestra, and was, in fact, the section leader. I was in honors classes.

I was not, however, a high honors student.

I was one of those kids who drove teachers mad. I scored high on aptitude tests, but somehow couldn't quite make the jump from the standardized tests that measured my intelligence to academic tests that measured my grade point average. When it came to academics, I was often...average.

Anyway, about this student:

She is a middle school student, and she runs a mile in six minutes.

...and here we get to the heart of the matter.

Okay, when I was 19 and in the best shape of my life, I ran a mile on a whim. Granted, I ran it in jeans and a tee shirt, and I ran it at night, so I couldn't check the stopwatch setting on my wristwatch to push myself a bit more. Still, I cranked out a respectable 5:51.

In other words, as an adult, I was only able to beat this student's time by nine seconds.

Such things are humbling. And if you work in a middle school, that is only the start of it. For if you really get to know your students, you will find out that there are countless people who are already, in their early teens, doing things better than you ever did (or will do) them in your life.

In other words, I have had numerous students who I know could run circles around me athletically, musically, and academically.

You get used to it, and you learn humility; if you don't have this humility, I can't see how you'll make it as a teacher (or, in my case, a school librarian). You learn to accept that many, many people will do many, many things better than you. And having accepted that, you are free to do something genuinely life affirming: you can cheer these students on. And having done that, you are then free to notice something equally wonderful: this is a great way to make a living.

Too often, there are news stories about kids doing awful things (particularly now, the day after Halloween). You would often think, from reading these stories, that the next generation is basically a brainless, shambling zombie attack, bent on nothing but destruction.

The more that I embrace my central tenet of this blog--to write nothing but positive things about students--the better I feel about the future.

Today, when I was discussing my writing of this blog entry, a number of other students said that I should write about them.

"Fine," I said, "just come in tomorrow ready to talk about something you're proud of."

I know that the more I do this, the more students will approach me (I hope) about aspects of them--their accomplishments, their abilities--that they want the world to know about. I know, if this becomes a steady source of writing, that I will often write about students who already have a level of mastery of various skills that will leave my abilities far, far behind. This, I now know, is a great, great thing.

This student is already a better academic, a batter athlete, and a better musician that I will ever be. Good. There are many other students like this student.

I want to talk to them, and I want to write about them. So many of them embody what journalist Pete Hamill called "The Talent in the Room."

And Pete Hamill writes far better than I ever will. Trust me. Click here if you don't believe me, and you can read some of his stuff and see for yourself; this guy rocks.