Sometime around second or third grade we all start to feel the need to “go clubbing.” No, I don’t mean visiting some late-night hot spot. I do mean joining some kind of club or another. Do you know an elementary school without its own resident organizational savant? You know, the kid who starts “clubs” and who suggests, organizes, and dictates the rules that define their “club.”

The whole point of a “club” is to let some “belong” while letting others know they do NOT belong. Being accepted to the group of girls playing Chinese jump rope or the boys who play kick ball is usually our first social experience of being an “insider” or an “outsider.” “Clubbing” becomes a game, a contest we then play pretty much for the rest of our lives. There are always “in” groups, “out” groups, the “popular,…