Jack's World

Jack has an interesting personality. He lives more in his own world than most people. He is very interactive with everyone around him, but often in trying to bring us into his world more than sharing ours. His world is very imaginative, but also full of rules, and very black and white. Here's a glimpse from Tuesday evening with Jack.

Jack, who is learning Spanish for the first time this year, was very proud of one of his spelling sentences that day. He started the conversation like this: "I wrote a 20 point sentence for spelling today, all in Spanish, with 20 words, two spelling words, and without even using the word and!" (Lots of hand flapping.) I asked him to write the sentence for me. Mi amigo tiene que recortar su dibujo porques es un dibujo muy mal con un problema de matemáticas que es inexacto, he wrote. I was really impressed. I asked whether the teachers wanted them to try to write long sentences and gave them one point per word. "No," he said, "I just like to count it that way. They don't care how long it is, or how many spelling words you use in one sentence. And they don't care if you use and, but that's too easy, so I don't like to do it myself." At this point he noticed that the sentence he had written on our white board actually had 21 words. (Lots of hand flapping, again.) "I wrote muy mal tonight. I didn't use muy at school. I wish I had thought of that before. That makes it even more points!"

Later that evening he asked if he could type something on the computer. I said yes. When he returned, he had a pile of "homework" worksheets that he had made. Elliot, ever the eager participant, got to do Jack's homework. Here is Elliot's completed (and graded - by Jack) worksheet.

Jack gave him a 15/20 on the homework, even though Elliot got all of the answers right! He prepared an answer sheet himself which showed all of the elements which were required to earn full credit on the assignment. Here it is.

When Ted came home that night, he had the following conversation with Jack:

J: Who's the best player on the Mosquitoes?
T: Jack, I don't know any of the players on the Mosquitoes.
J: Yes, you do! Come on!
T: Um, Angel Pagan?
J: Uhhhh, Dad. He's terrible!

Before Ted could try to guess again, Elliot shouted out a guess from across the room.
He was right. Of course.
He spends a lot more time in Jack's World than we do. Duh.