All Kinds of Minds

Hi. I'm Jarvis Clutch. I know that’s a weird name. Don’t go after me, reader. I didn’t pick it out, but sometimes I get picked on because of it. Anyway, I’m supposed to be writing this book about school—just about the social part of school. Dr. Mel Levine, my doctor, is writing it with me. You see, I was required (that means forced) to do a project for school with some grownup I know. So I picked Dr. Levine. Lucky for him. He’s very interested in kids my age and how they learn and how they get along. Maybe he was willing to help me because he thinks I can’t learn and don’t get along very well with other kids! Just kidding. It was his big idea that for this project I should spend a few months checking out the social scene here at school. I was supposed to watch how kids in my middle school act, talk, and try to come across when they’re with each other. And I was supposed to notice kids who were good at making friends and kids who were especially talented at making enemies without really trying—a very interesting skill. So I did what I had to do. I took notes (lots of which I couldn’t read afterward) and I recorded a few conversations. Some of them came out OK and others were useless because I forgot to change the dumb batteries in the Stone Age cassette recorder that my mom lent me. I think it originally belonged to her grandmother, who had gotten it from her grandmother!

I had to look over all the stuff I collected, and then I went through that well-known cruel and unusual torture for innocent, suffering middle school kids: I had to write a report, which is not a favorite form of thrilling entertainment for your average guy of my age. But, I did it. With Dr. Levine’s very, very kind and mostly hassling, Jarvis-bugging assistance, I wrote the report, thirty-two pages of Jarvis talking about the social scene. And guess what, reader? I got an A on my report, an A for absolutely astonishing and amazingly excellent (I’ve never been much of a speller). This might not seem so unbelievably dazzling and thrilling to you, but I swear to you that in my life, A’s have been about as common as five feet of snow in the middle of the summer! But then, get this: because I got that stupid A and was so excellent at observing and talking about other kids, Dr. Levine suggested that we take all the stuff I found out, try to get even more inside dirt, and write a book together! That sounded like the worst idea I had heard in the entire fourteen years of my life (I’m not sure what I heard inside my mom). Yes, I was going to be brutally punished and abused for getting an A on a report by having to write more! You see, I learned that success can cost you something. But, after a lot of hassling, I agreed to do it. So, reader, you are now reading the book Dr. Levine and I wrote together.

My Social Spying
Here’s how it worked: I wrote about different kids, taken from real, teenage human-animal-type life in the Eastern Middle School jungle. Each chapter talks about a different part of how kids try to get along with each other. At certain moments during my very accurate and mostly useless descriptions, Dr. Levine jumps in (interrupts) with mostly very intelligent things to say in order to teach us all something and impress us with all the great stuff he knows. He sometimes shows us some weird diagrams that he designed to help us understand, or to make sure we’re completely confused, about the whole world of social life. He makes up these diagrams when he has nothing better to do. He says that they help kids who like to learn things visually. Sometimes in my parts of the chapter, I might say some things about what he had to say about what I said. At the end of each chapter, Dr. Levine makes comments and then we ask some questions that you, the loving, fascinated reading public, are supposed to think about and maybe discuss with your friends or classmates if you feel like it (or if someone forces you to). Or, you could always talk to some strangers or your pet ant colony or a hermit crab instead. You could even talk to yourself if you and yourself get along OK. I also came up with some writing and spying projects that you can do if you don’t have a more interesting way to spend your time.

Some Surprisingly Boring Stuff about Me
Let me begin this book by filling you in on a few unimportant and boring personal things about me that are basically none of your business. As you know, I happen to be Jarvis Clutch. I’m fourteen, and I’m a prisoner in eighth grade at Eastern Middle School, which I hate. I can’t stand the place. The work kills, there are too many teachers (and some of them are really hard to understand), and there are a lot of kids I don’t like much and about the same number who would not want to join any Jarvis fan club, for sure. I mean some kids are actually totally mean. In a way, I’m one of them. I mean, I’m mean too—at least sometimes in some ways. I’ve been known to join in making fun of kids for things they can’t help. At least I realize how mean that is right after I do it, so then I cool it.

In case you’re wondering, Eastern Middle School was given its very clever name to make sure people didn’t go to Western Middle School by mistake. Last year they built a third middle school, which I wanted them to name Middle Middle School. Because it was the smallest middle school in town, I thought they could even call it Little Middle Middle School. When it was being built, there was all this steel stuff they put up, and I told someone that they needed to call it Metal Middle Middle School. But the people who run our schools, known throughout the world for their hilarious sense of humor and originality, decided to call it Central Middle School. No one ever listens to Jarvis.

As you may have decided already, I’m actually pretty creative, more than most kids. I’m fairly good at writing stories and things, and I like to use writing to make fun of stuff and people. But I’ll warn you, I can’t spell, and my handwriting is not even as neat as what an elephant could get on paper writing with its trunk. Dr. Levine says we’re having an editor, someone who looks everything over and fixes up the spelling, double-check this book before it gets printed. I may start asking that person to check all of my homework! Also, my reading public, you’re in luck: you don’t have to try to decipher my handwriting, because I’m using a computer, the one my older brother used to use before he got a good one. I call my computer “the scraptop” because it’s such a piece of junk that it should really go straight to the trash heap.

Dr. Levine’s Ideas
Now, for the great moment that you haven’t been waiting for! We’re going to hear from Dr. Mel Levine, my always very interested and sometimes even a little bit interesting writing partner. By the way, he says it’s OK if I just call him Levine or else Dr. Mel or Dr L.—he doesn’t care, I guess, as long as I say ridiculously nice stuff about him, even if I don’t completely mean it.

So now let’s meet and greet Dr. Mel Levine, who is here to teach you about a very major main idea in this very major fabulous book.

Something Called Social Thinking
Thanks, Jarvis. It’s great to be writing this book with Jarvis Clutch. As you will discover, he is a very special kid, and there are parts of Jarvis that are inside all of us.

Jarvis Clutch—Social Spy is mainly about something very important called social thinking, which most likely is a term you’ve never heard before, even though it’s something you use all day long. Even most grownups don’t know exactly what it means. Let me explain. You know that thinking is using your mind for something, such as trying to understand math, fixing a computer, learning a foreign language, or imagining an original story. Social thinking is the use of your mind to form and keep up good relationships with other people. You use your social thinking skills to make friends and stay on good terms with them. You use social thinking to understand other people when they’re with you, by asking yourself questions like, “Does that person like me or not? Why is she saying that to me? Why is he acting this way with me?” Social thinking also helps you seem right, talk right, and act right when you’re with other people. We’ll explain more about those three things in the next few chapters of this book.

For more information about Jarvis Clutch – Social Spy, visit Educators Publishing Service