Playing 4 Keeps First Meeting
Last Thursday the 4th Playing 4 Keeps had its first meeting in it's new home, Canarsie High School. After wading through the preliminary beginning-of-the-program chaos and running around the school rounding up students as the last bell rang, the afternoon ran smooth as silk. Silk on top of gravel, but still...
Seriously though, we had fifteen returning GK leaders come out, veterans of both the Newz Crew program at Canarsie and Playing 4 Keeps at South Shore. We have a coalition this year, a twin school-hybrid, multi-skilled, game-designing super group. Call it the P4K All-Stars, like a best of album made up of all your favorite hits from South Shore and Canarsie. And we're going platinum this year!
Once properly caffeinated and with their blood sugar sufficiently elevated, all our leaders dove into the tasks of the day. They pantomimed silly actions in a getting-to-know-you activity and still kept their too cool for school attitude. Not an easy feat. Technical glitches were overcome with resourcefulness (big ups to Sanji for the quick save!) finesse and patience. They multi-tasked--playing Ayiti, the first game P4K produced, while simultaneously watching streaming hip-hop videos. It was incredible: imagine balancing your Haitian family's financial, educational, and health needs while also getting crunked up with Lil Wayne. That takes talent, and our leaders got it. Some even managed to make money in the game, something I have never accomplished. And (most importantly) they were able to break down the game, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and explain why the game's realism and challenging game play makes it both engaging, and educational. At least that was the gist of what they said.
We've got a big year ahead of us with a lot to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time. With this crew, though, we're going to get everything done, make it nice, and look good doing it. We've also got some alliances in the works that could make this project do a Voltron transformation and become a juggernaut. Keep watching and we'll keep you posted. Peace.
