As students at The Children’s School get older, there are more opportunities to build and grow their leadership skills. One of the most popular ways of doing this is to propose, form and run a Middle Grades club during club days on B-days and/or E-days for grades 6-8 students.
Shane ‘26 and Joaquin ‘26 formed an anime club which meets on B days to watch and then discuss anime.
We sat down with Shane to talk about what it’s like to co-lead a club at TCS.
What made you decide to start an anime club?
Joaquin and I are very passionate about anime. We know a lot about it. Tristan (‘24), my older brother, got me into it. We wanted a club for others who know a lot about anime or want to learn more or they just want to watch something. Anime is our way of expressing that so that’s why we kind of started the anime club because we feel passionate about it and we know others might feel passionate about it or want to feel passionate about it.
As club leaders, it’s mine and Joaquin’s job to make sure everything goes according to what we want to happen and to make the club lives up to expectations.
What are you responsible for as the Anime Club co-leader?
When you lead a club, you don’t just decide what happens on club days. You listen to what the others in the club want to happen. So for me Joaquin, we asked them, “Hey, what do you want to watch?”
Describe a typical anime meeting?
Once everyone is in the classroom, we asked them: “Hey, do you want to discuss the anime? Do you want to keep watching?” We don’t want to just be like a movie club. We kind of want it to be an anime discussion.
What did you have to do to form the anime club?
(Director of Upper School) Justin sent out a form to anyone that wanted to create a club. I asked Joaquin, “do you want to make an anime club?” and he agreed. We had to decide: what is the club about? What are we going to be doing in the club, and name three things that we want to happen. Then, we had a little presentation in the D building foyer where me and Joaquin presented what it was all about with Demi.
How do you think it’s going so far?
Really good. A highlight for me has been the first day when we wrote down a bunch of animes and we spun the wheel to figure out the first thing to watch and discuss.
What have you learned being a leader of a club?
I’ve learned that some people listen in different ways. So for example, I know (one of the club members) is always listening because he’s always responding to what I’m saying with a thumbs up. Another member, I can tell that he’s always tuning in because he has little comments.
