So I teach 3rd grade, and I consider myself a pretty empathetic teacher. I feel that I have the ability to, at times, put myself in some size 3 shoes and remember what an 8 year old's life revolves around. But I was not prepared for this incident.
My kids are obsessed with Webkinz...China's attempt at creating consumers at a very early age. Their parents buy them a stuffed animal at the toy store, and this stuffed animal has a secret code that allows the child to log on to the Webkinz site and "play" with their stuffed animal online. They play games which earns them "webkinz money" that they can then use to furnish their pet's room, groom them, buy them clothes, enlist them in classes, and most importantly buy them food which is essential to their virtual survival. My kids all bring their Webkinz to school and play with them at recess, then go home at night and play with their virtual Webkinz at home. Seems innocent enough (even if I have some moral issues with teaching consumerism at such a young age).
Well... one of my students, Anna, who owns about five Webkinz (all with their own personalities and functions--the parrot helps her with her homework, the seahorse plays with her at recess, the koala bear sleeps with her at night, the fish eats lunch with her...etc.) is my most obsessed fan. The other day, we had indoor recess because it was pouring down rain outside. We normally don't allow the kids to use their laptops during recess, but that day we did because they'd been working hard all morning. Anna logs on to her computer and within five minutes is sobbing uncontrollably, attracting a small group of consoling students around her.
I call her to my desk to see what is wrong and she can't speak because she is sobbing so hard that she can barely breathe. Seriously, she is on the verge of hyperventilating, it's the kind of sob where you can barely catch your breath and you are snorting snot everywhere and don't care. I grab her a chair and have to spend about five minutes doing some deep breathing with her to get her to calm down enough to speak. When she is finally able to speak, I learn that she is very upset (still in tears, bouts of hyperventilation again...) because her Webkinz are all going to die tomorrow (more tears, cries get more intense) because they're all hungry and she doesn't have any money to feed them. I ask her how she gets money to feed them and she says that she has to play more games. I ask her why she doesn't just play some games and she tells me that (sobs escalate...) by the time she plays enough games, they'll all be (snot, tears, sobs) dead.
Now, I'm going to take a little side note here. I think most women will understand (which will always baffle men)....when we're upset about something, we like to just be heard and not be given "solutions".
"I'm so out of shape and my clothes don't fit anymore!"
Female response: "Yeah, I hate that, there's just never enough time to exercise, is there?"
Male response: "Then start running."
Which then makes us more upset because although we're being a bit irrational expecting our man to be coddling us, we just want our complaints to be valid, right?
Well, I believe that I finally found the portal to Mars... I had no idea how to respond to Anna's predicament, and I found myself reverting to rationality. I squared Anna's shoulders to me and said,
"Anna. Are your parents alive?" --Yes.
"Are your siblings alive?" --Yes.
"Do you have food at home?" --Yes.
"Do you have shelter, clothes?" --Yes.
"Do you have friends?" --Yes.
"Do you still have your stuffed animals?" --Yes.
"Then I need you to log off the computer and play something in this world. In this world, everything is okay, in fact, it's great--and it's not so great for a lot of people..."
After that she hugged me and within minutes was laughing and playing and forgot all about the death of her virtual friends.
I wonder if they have virtual funerals?
On a lighter note, Micah and I have our own virtual pet, which we have (even before this incident) lovingly named "Webkin." We have an outdoor cat (he had the history of peeing on everything indoor, so we only keep him outdoors) and he spends all day and all night sitting right outside our kitchen window. When we walk into the kitchen, he meows and if we put our hand to the glass, he starts purring and rubbing up against the glass as if we're actually petting him.
Perhaps I'm starting to understand the attraction of virtual pets. We get all the pleasure of having a pet without the fur, without the allergies, and without the peeing on everything. However, we do have to feed this one...
