Alumni Association Home > Past Issues > 2006 > September-October 2006	Print View

Middle-school kids filtered into the youth-group room at a south Minneapolis church, and I, with my checklist, tried to guess who was who. “Are you . . . Jacob?” I asked a boy standing in the doorway holding what looked like a lunchbox.

“Yeah,” he replied and walked over to stand against the wall.

“And you’re . . . Daniel?” I asked the next boy, carrying a similar box.

“Uh-huh,” he mumbled.

“This must be Nichelle,” I said to a girl who hesitated before striding in. I guessed right. Seven Tronix Team kids who’d made boomboxes out of lunchboxes had arrived as scheduled; just a few more and the photographer could begin shooting.

It was 95 degrees outside and 94 in the room. I was hot and perspiring, mainly because I hadn’t been around this many pre-teens in three decades. I experienced a flash of insecurity. Do they think I’m cool? What do they think of my shoes? Would they want to hang out with me?

What was I thinking? I shook it off, reminding myself that I don’t mean anything to these kids. I’m just an aging woman with a checklist. Another girl ambled into the room and I conferred with my papers. “Are you . . . Latesha?”

“NO!” she said indignantly, as if I’d asked if she had a problem with bathing, and then hurried to lose herself in the crowd. Apparently what I say or do does mean something to the younger set. I had singled this girl out and made her feel that she wasn’t where she should be.

I back pedaled, telling her how happy I was that she could be there, and then herded the group into place for the photo.The kids acted a bit bored; an onlooker might have wondered if they hadn’t canceled important commitments to be there. But I knew better. A few days earlier when I called their homes and asked them to come, they’d said sure, they’d love to, just name the time.

But these were the kids I could find. A half dozen phone numbers in my stack of 40 permission forms were disconnected or were emergency contact names of relatives who didn’t know what I was talking about when I explained that the magazine was featuring kids who had made MP3 players—from soldering wires to installing speakers—out of plastic lunchboxes. I was worried that no kids would show but more worried for those who seemed to disappear or go unnoticed.

One of the girls flipped on her boombox, emitting an apparently popular song. The group loosened up and the camera clicked. A half hour later, I was relieved that we would have great photos for our cover and thanked the kids for being there. They left with an air of ennui, but my job was done. Then Steve Birth, who founded Tronix Team to interest kids in science and engineering, handed me a stack of short essays written by his campers about their experience. I took these home to read.

None wrote that they found the project boring or uncool. “I realized that I can really pursue something that I thought I couldn’t do,” wrote one. “I wonder if this experience could help in my later career. That would mean so much to me,” confided another. “I learned that you can do anything if you put your mind to it,” wrote someone else. “I learned how to make something out of nothing!” exclaimed another.

If you’re walking down the street and you see kids listening to their lunchboxes, ask them if they made them. And ask them what they’re going to make next.