The Bishop's Office: Being Off Track is SUPER

When we moved in February, my main concern about our new school was the year round schedule. The whole idea of tracks and being off track was foreign to me. So, for those of you in the same boat I will start with a simple explanation.

At our school there are four tracks - A, B, C, D. Each student is assigned to a track. At any given time, students from three of the tracks are in school and the students on the fourth track are out of school, or off track. The school takes a common holiday for three weeks in July so there are no students in school. This is when the transition to the next grade, changes in teachers, and sometimes changes in tracks occurs.

Each track is on for nine weeks then off for three weeks. When a class goes off track they load up everything into their classroom (which I've heard isn't too difficult with the use of desk cubbies and lots of velcro on the walls) and it goes into storage so another class from the track coming on can move into that room.

Now, I'm not much of a fan of summer break (which I why I do Summer Fun), so I liked the idea of a shortened summer. Tracks B and C only get three weeks off for summer break. Tracks A and D get seven weeks (A gets out in June before everyone else and D goes back in August after everyone else - when C goes off track....getting confused?).

Needless to say, I was a little anxious about how I was going to handle all this off track time throughout the year. I decided to go with a strategy I already knew and come up with an off track theme. We were set to go off track in the beginning on October so I made plans for a really super time with a super hero theme. This would, of course, first require the creation of super hero capes. And what would a super hero cape be if it didn't have a super hero symbol?

Being as Shem is the artistic one in the house, I commissioned him to create them. He was careful to ask what I was looking for before he started. "I don't know," I replied. "I just want a cool shield shape with their initial in the middle." About an hour later he presented me with some pretty fancy drawings. He proceeded to explain his creations, "See, Adam can run so fast that he can duplicate himself. And Colin can shoot electricity from his hands."

I was more than impressed. His ideas were better than I had imagined. However, I wasn't completely sold on the bubble design he had made for Kate, so I asked him if we could do something more stunning - maybe star shaped?

Shem: "But, she has the ability to manipulate molecules. A star shape doesn't show that."
Me: "I know, but I just don't think this design is exciting enough."
Shem: "Well, I asked you before I started if there was anything you had in mind." [getting frustrated]
Me: "I know, but I didn't know what I wanted then."

Shem is not one to make much of a fuss about anything, so I was confused why he was so upset over my request for revision of his sketch. It suddenly dawned on me that he had made a complete visual characterization of each of our super hero children. He was invested in the powers he had created for them! With some validation and gently coaxing we were able to come up with a new symbol and some new powers for Kate.

I set to work and made his pictures come to life...