D.O.R.K. Club

I am a fourth grade teacher at Peachtree Academy in Conyers, Georgia. My students and I have created a classroom club called the D.O.R.K. Club (Dedicated Original Responsible Kidz). 

A couple of months ago, one of my students was called a dork and was offended. I told him, "Who cares? Dorks are cool!" I told him it was good to be a dork. Dorks do homework, try hard in school, help others, and contribute to their community. I said that I was a dork and proud of it! “We should start a club!”                                                                                  

Obviously, I said all of this in an attempt to prevent him from feeling ashamed of himself. I have been telling my kids for years that I like dorks, so this was not an unusual conversation for me to have with a student.

What was unusual was his response. He was thrilled that I liked dorks and that I said we should start a club. He immediately told the other students that he and Mrs. Bart-Addison were starting a D.O.R.K. Club!

Well, if his reaction surprised me, I never expected the other students to be so intrigued or excited that they wanted to join also! Right away, they began assigning "officer" positions. We have all necessary positions to efficiently run a club. We even have DITs, which are Dorks in Training (for those that forget homework or say dorks are not cool).

The students have since come up with the idea of using decorated t-shirts to announce the D.O.R.K. Club to the rest of the school and advertise for a bake sale. The bake sale would raise money in the name of the D.O.R.K. Club and all proceeds would go to St. Jude's Children’s Research Hospital. They are very excited about doing this and helping the patients at the hospital.