A couple of weeks ago, Jonah came home with an assignment for a project. He had to drive around town taking pictures of five buildings in our community and seven community workers. Then he had to print up the pictures and adhere them to a poster board with some labels.
Since not many eight year old are able to drive a car, take pictures, or print pictures on photo stock paper, this was really a project for the parents. Thanks a lot, Miss C.!
Of course, this project was put off until the night before. Both kids were driven around town in the pouring rain and in near darkness. We shot pictures of the library and the borough hall and the local church. I surfed around the web looking for pictures of policemen and firemen. I let Jonah pick which librarian picture to use, though I suggested that he ignore the pictures of librarians making out with each other.
Two hours later, Steve came home in the rain with the poster board. I printed out the pictures and showed Jonah how to neatly glue stick the pictures onto the poster board and arrange them, so that it didn't look like the local church was crushing the policeman. He was very proud of the final effect. I drove him into school the next day, so the poster didn't get mashed on the school bus.
I thought it looked okay. My kid wouldn't be shamed at school the
next day. But who knew what the other posters looked like? Mrs. Coyle and Mrs. McSheer could have conspired
to make something super fancy.
This had to be the dumbest projects ever. I spent hours of work on a third grade poster that really had no educational impact on my child. But what really ticked me off was that I only got a B+ on the project.
At the ripe old age of 42, you would think that I would just let this roll off my back. But no, I sent Miss C. a series of e-mails protesting my grade. It was not exactly clear from the original assignment sheet that each individual object needed to be labeled. Why had she taken off points for not doing something extra? It took me days to get over getting a B+ in a third grade class.
Heh. My daughter had a project involving the life cycle, and she had to bring in 4 photos of herself at various stages of her life. This ended up being a huge project for her father only because he is a total photo control freak and because my daughter is at the age of 8 very self-conscious about her image. The end result was ... eh. Not sure what they got out of it.
My grade-grubbing story is my unhappiness over my son getting less than the highest grade on "colors inside the lines" on his kindergarten progress report. I wish I could show you his pictures. The kid has *no* problem coloring inside the lines. Grrrr.
Posted by: Wendy | March 09, 2008 at 09:02 PM
You get real grades in 3rd grade? Wow. My experience is only in 2nd grade, but so far, we just get smiley faces and stickers on projects. Nothing even remotely resembling a real grade!
Posted by: K | March 09, 2008 at 10:50 PM
That librarian with classes kind of looks like a girl I dated in college. Weird.
Posted by: Russell Arben Fox | March 10, 2008 at 12:12 AM
Glasses, I mean. Sheesh, why am I still on the computer?
Posted by: Russell Arben Fox | March 10, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Dave Barry has a theory that school science projects are how teachers get revenge on parents. Apparently his theory was just a bit narrow and science doesn't have to be involved.
Posted by: MH | March 10, 2008 at 09:59 AM
MH, I need to look up that column. I actually told my son's teacher to issue me a shotgun with next year's Science Fair assignment so I could spare myself the pain.
and K we get real grades (numerical! 1-4), which the Husband and I act excited about and file as quickly as possible.
Posted by: LisaS | April 02, 2008 at 05:38 PM