By Julia Berg

A student flips his packet over and examines the array of dots at the top of the page before tackling the multiplication as his friend looks on. Moving through the steps as he completes each problem, he finds that he is now able to do them with a little more ease. Meanwhile, a couple of students finish their own homework while the rest of the students read books that they chose from the bookshelf or retrieved from their backpacks.

At one table, two students are immersed in their graphic novels. One reveals that he is reading Cat Kid Comic Club #1, sharing that he has finished a couple of other series by the same author. He explains to me that he loves reading graphic novels because the illustrations add to the humor, which make the books more fun to read. He quickly flips a couple pages back to point to a panel and provides context before reading the dialogue aloud, making himself giggle. He retells all the events that occur after, occasionally describing the funniest parts of the characters’ amusing behavior or another aspect of the story.

He specifically points out a moment that he finds intriguing – the moment when the students in the story struggle to create comics because of their lack of confidence in their skills. The teacher responds by telling the students that they are afraid to fail so they didn’t try. They announce that the assignment for tonight is to fail.

Our Carver student pauses for a second to ponder whether or not he is too afraid of making mistakes and concludes that he has been learning from his mistakes before he continues retelling the story to me.

Volunteer Julia Berg tells us lively stories about our summer and after-school students at the Carver Community Center. See more of her stories here.