Anyone who's spent time teaching kids in the urban core will tell you that you have to make sacrifices if you want to help. For some, that means giving up personal time or accepting a low salary. But for Adam Clark, the price was even higher.
Clark publicly and irrevocably outed himself today as a Magic: The Gathering fan.
Clark, a middle school art teacher in KCK, admitted that he was a grown man who fantasized about being a powerful wizard because it would help kids. And for that, we cannot mock this brave, impenitent manchild.
Clark sent in his story -- which will remain accessible forever to anyone who can use Google -- to the Gathering Magic Web site as an entry in a contest to see who deserved free Magic cards.
Clark wrote:
"I work as an art teacher at an urban middle school in Kansas City, KS. I have a group of students that stay after school every Thursday to play magic. When making purchases for myself, all the extras go to them as they cannot afford decks/boosters themselves. Magic is a great resource to help with their reasoning/problem solving skills. We would appreciate the cards to teach them the basics of a sealed tournament. The cards would be added to our library for the kids to use."
What woman would have him now?
Clark won, and his public humiliation now benefits the students who will use the cards, and are still of appropriate age to protect their innocence against the harsh realities of life within a world of Garruks and Planeswalkers.
"Math, vocab, and creativity are the benefits that come to mind," Clark told Gathering Magic. "Basic math skills like addition and subtraction. You can't do upper level math without knowing the basics. Things like fractions and probability when it comes to your deck and chance of drawing cards. Keywords/Mechanics are great for definitions and expanding their word base. Flavor text and strategy along with problem solving skills offer outlets for creativity."
Desperately trying to justify their obsessions, Magic fans will tell you that the card game was created by a Richard Garfield, a mathematics professor at Whitman college, who also happens to have Ph. D. in combinatorial mathematics from Penn.
Years from now, when his students are grown, we can only hope they remember to visit the probably lonely teacher who once ruined his life for their benefit. When he asks you if you wouldn't love to play one more game for old time's sake, smile, and pretend for him.
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The author makes a valid point that identifying as a Magic player carries a stigma. This article is a fine exhibit of the kinds of associations that are attached to fantasy games.
Identifying as a Magic player has affected other people's perceptions of me. I accept these slights because there are benefits, aside from an afternoon of fun. Because I play Magic, I am the only member of my family with a current passport. It has been an opportunity to explore a little of the world, if only San Juan and Yokohama, Japan. And social networking through Magic has yielded an excellent summer internship with a mainstream public institution. There are competitive incentives, too. A series of semi-independent $5k cash tournaments has been touring the country for the past year and a half. That is in addition to the regularly scheduled events with prize pools in excess of $400k. And while it is unlikely to meet someone who doesn't play Magic through Magic, there is no shortage of interesting people to interact with.
It is only recently that popular culture has accepted how richly descriptive games can be. The business and political worlds use them to talk about everything from public opinion to fiscal risk to labor negotiations. There is a high correlation between people who play fantasy games and people who have the analytical skills which are in high demand in many industries. It is desirable to be able to reduce a complex, real-world situation to a game. Mr. Clark, at least, seems to understand that.
The author makes a valid point that identifying as a Magic player carries a stigma. This article is a fine exhibit of the kinds of associations that are attached to fantasy games.
Identifying as a Magic player has affected other people's perceptions of me. I accept these slights because there are benefits, aside from an afternoon of fun. Because I play Magic, I am the only member of my family with a current passport. It has been an opportunity to explore a little of the world, if only San Juan and Yokohama, Japan. And social networking through Magic has yielded an excellent summer internship with a mainstream public institution. There are competitive incentives, too. A series of semi-independent $5k cash tournaments has been touring the country for the past year and a half. That is in addition to the regularly scheduled events with prize pools in excess of $400k. And while it is unlikely to meet someone who doesn't play Magic through Magic, there is no shortage of interesting people to interact with.
It is only recently that popular culture has accepted how richly descriptive games can be. The business and political worlds use them to talk about everything from public opinion to fiscal risk to labor negotiations. There is a high correlation between people who play fantasy games and people who have the analytical skills which are in high demand in many industries. It is desirable to be able to reduce a complex, real-world situation to a game. Mr. Clark, at least, seems to understand that.
While it is true that admitting that you play magic can alienate you from people, I would argue that people who exhibit tone like the author's are
Yes, I play, and yes, it has been a factor a couple times in how someone's perceived me. But the benefits are tangible - and I don't mean an afternoon of fun. I mean free tickets to places like San Juan and Yokohama, Japan. And networking that yielded the best possible internship at a mainstream public institution this summer. The competitive incentives are there too. There's a series of semi-independent $5k tournaments that has been running for about a year and a half, in addition to a couple tournaments a year with prize pools over $400k.
The world is run by nerds. It was only in the past 30 years or so that the business world realized numbers drive everything. There's a high correlation between people who play magic and people who are good at modeling the world as a game. And Mr. Clark, at least, seems to realize that.
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Its obvious to me that this teacher is hustling Wizards of the coast (The company that makes magic) for free cards. Say what you want but these cards can be verry valuable and I'm sure he wouldn't mind opening a few free boxes for the "Good of the children of course". I can't see this guy opening up a pack , finding a 70$ rare, and just putting the thing in the childrens magic library. Thats laughable..
That being said..I find the tone and headline of this article to be immature. Why all the nerd bashing? It seems to me that Mike Rugg needs to grow up and stop judging people. Did he not stuff enough nerds in lockers in high school? Did some poor magic player spill some pudding on his letterman jacket? He should let these people play there game in piece without his unnecessary criticism. After all, someone let Mr Rugg post his biased and childish article online for the world to see....its a free country
I laughed my butt off at this. Magic isn't really that embarassing, but the article is still hilarious.
I don't see how this is public humiliation, I mean at least this guy is help "your kids" and making learning fun. What is wrong with that? It's more public humiliation to the editor for bashing complete innocents. what a moron, MTG is a widely known strategic card game that people of all ages play. I too used to enjoy this game as well, but I got bored of it, yet I still play on www.neopets.com and I am not humiliated in the slightest and I am 21 years old. It's not about how lame you think a game or what not might be but, some people enjoy these game's.
I commend Adam Clark for his work teaching other kids how to play Magic and providing them cards that they can't afford. As an adament MTG player myself, I'll admit that I'm biased but I also think MTG can be a great way for kids and anyone else for that matter to learn many useful skills, especially related to math, logic, problem solving, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. There's so many times I've seen a word before that I vaguely recognized, and then I remember that I've seen it before on a Magic card and can instantly deduce what it means. When the game has over 10,000 unique cards, it's inevidable that there's going to be some new words in there you've never seen before but are forced to remember.
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