<p>My family has forbidden me from participating in any activity involving glue, especially hot glue, glitter, and construction paper. It really doesn’t matter if it’s school related or not. </p>
<p>Seriously, why lie to make your kid look better, or worse yet, do his or her work for them? Do you really want to be the parent that makes everybody else roll their eyes? I always laugh when one of “those” familes announces a college name, often a highly selective school that gets mentioned on cc, and it’s met with blank stares from whoever they’re talking to.</p>
<p>Nah, I don’t lie about them. It gets kind of annoying after you are past kid #1 and can spot it a mile away though. “Johnny rec’d $25,000 merit scholarship at Magnificent School”. Thus far I have managed to restrain myself when I know the top merit scholarship is $10,000. Ad nauseum.</p>
<p>But…these are sometimes clueless, proud, loving parents. MUCH more annoying to me are class “projects”. Sorry, I can paint a barn but not a scenic picture in a shoebox. I have much more meaningful ways to spend my time, let alone money. These projects can get expensive quickly. As others noted, the bar is raised and points are deducted for things a typical elem/middle schooler would do. The rubrics are usually very subjective in their grading. IMO, these projects are a complete waste of time and money and teachers are asking for cheating.</p>
<p>OK, so I am on the opposite side of this right now…I have one of those kids that was always underestimated. Always…ALWAYS!!! You know that kid, nice, usually polite, good ring of friends that know what he is all about, but not that “star athlete with 4.0 GPA and state superstar/ teacher’s pet” type. If you know what I mean. Teachers love him, but over look him…</p>
<p>So people heard through the grapevine that he recevied a big scholarship for college next year. I heard the
“yea, right”,
“that school does not give OOS scholarships”
“His scores were not that high”
“how could he have a GPA that high?”
“his parents…bla bla bla…”</p>
<p>So when the college representitive showed up at his school this morning to hand him the two certificates for the scholarships he won, a few eyebrows went up. And when he DOES graduate from the CC this thursday (Summa cum laude) BEFORE he graduates from HS on June 5th (as salutatorian), it will shut a lot of them up. At least temporarily. Until they find another way to discount his abilities. ~sigh~ I am sure a few will make comments about him not being Val- but he could not use his CC class credits as part of his GPA, so his GPA was handicapped.</p>
<p>All I am saying is some of these kids do have the skills, and some don’t. I personally am a “don’t”. </p>
<p>A kid in our county just won the intel science fair for developing a urine test to detect early pancreatic cancer. He comes from a brilliant family, and the first thing everyone thinks is that his parents did this. The first thing I thought was “why did a 15 year old have to think of this?”. But it was him, just like it was his brother 4 years ago. They just have those types of smarts- and resources to do that.</p>
<p>I am, but he worked hard. It is all about him! And he hates it when I brag! So I get to do it a little on CC, and not much in the community! </p>
<p>They are doing an article on him this month because he is the first public school student to graduate with an associates degree in our county…he is not going to like that attention, but will deal with it. I told him that doing the Sal speach is for me and his dad, so man up and deal with it…he laughed. Now I am worried about what he will write.</p>
<p>My children’s school has a hobby fair. It’s low stress, totally voluntary, child driven, and not for credit. There’s one family whose displays I love to visit each year because they’re so preposterous and obviously done by the parents. It’s become a joke among the other school parents.</p>
<p>For instance, one year while his peers had endearing posters with wobbly writing declaring their enthusiasm for “Rocks!” (a dozen collected from the back yard) and “Making Lego Army Men”, Little Lord Fauntleroy had a trifold display with multi-colored backgrounds, dense computer printed text and purchased fossils perfectly arranged under the title “Paleontology”. He was in kindergarten and I guarantee he couldn’t have pronounced paleontology, much less spelled the word.</p>
<p>The only time I can think of where I helped my son with a project was just last month in his IB English class. They had to write a poem based on an Edgar Allan Poe story- my son did that without me even knowing it, and it was great. Then on one of those nights when he was going to be up until 2 am with homework, I saw him sitting and cutting words out of magazines. Turns out he also had to find all of the words in his poem from magazines, then glue them onto a presentation in an “artistic presentation”. Son says a girl from previous class ran out of time and printed some of her words on a computer, and got a D on the whole project as a result. My son was studying for an AP Physics test the next day, and also had a huge history project due that week. Ok, I admit it… I took over and found and cut out all of the words for him, and then glued them on once he positioned them “artistically”. If teachers are going to assign pointless projects, I will dive in. (Same goes for coloring in high school at times).</p>
<p>Sue22, I think that same boy was in MY son’s class. In 2nd grade, my son had a project to make a “robot”. The students were not to purchase any materials. He made his robot with shoe boxes and the cardboard rolls from TP, held together with duct tape and covered with foil. As he proudly carried it to school, a remote-controlled robot with a glowing red heart whizzed by. At parents’ night, all of the robots were displayed, but the teacher made a point of praising the ones that were clearly kid-made.</p>
<p>My hs Latin scholar was assigned to make a pinata for a beginner Spanish class. I forget now the three other tasks in the same forty eight hours. Something like study for national test, choir performance, write major paper and prepare for two days later state Latin convention. I never did any assignment before, appalling idea…but I made that stupid (lovely) pinata and felt no remorse.</p>
<p>takeitallin and cottonwood513- I’m with you on the silly projects.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is this: an art teacher would never dare to assign an assignment in Spanish, so why do Spanish teachers (and history teachers and science teachers, and English teachers…) think it’s appropriate to give their students grades for what amount to glorified arts and crafts projects?</p>
<p>I have to qualify this by saying my H’s family comes from a family of teachers. I have the utmost respect for them. but sometimes it has crossed my mind that these projects are just to fill space in planning. Perhaps mandated by the school?
I have no problem with helping with useless projects etc… one must have common sense.
Its when parents do it, to embellish a project to make it look better as in the original question by the OP.
Vlines that is awesome. congrats to your son.
My kids dont go to to the public school, so most of my friends dont know how well they do. Sometimes I feel they are underestimated too, but then when your son is very successful as an adult people will notice . I think after HS no one cares anymore, but then again the competition may continue with who they marry, ehat their jobs are etc… it never ends</p>
<p>Just the other day in the office we were doing the “what do you have planned this weekend”, and one of my colleagues - a Ph.D. - said he was going to be busy writing his son’s essay for end of term. I was shocked. Someone else questioned it out loud, and the discussion began. Two of the people did either all or most of the writing for their kids’ papers, while three of us never did much of anything. (I personally proof read a couple of them. I might tell them something like “you don’t support your conclusion on the 3 page”. But I never did any of the writing or researching, or active editing.)</p>
<p>The same two parents who said they wrote all their kids’ material also said they wrote their kids’ college application essays also. As in completely, from coming up with the idea, to all the writing. Then they gave their kids the completed essays and told them to change some of the language so it sounded like a high school student instead of a Ph.D.</p>
<p>I remember listening to an interview with Laura Bush discussing a children’s book written by one of her daughters. The interviewer asked her if she read it before it was published, and she said of course, that she helped the girls write every single paper in college, so of course she helped with the book.</p>
<p>I have to admit to hating HS projects that include glue, shoe boxes, and magic markers. Poster board is right up there with that list, but necessary for some “projects”. Actually makes my skin crawl when I hear those things. </p>
<p>I think that there is a place for them in elementary school, and even in some middle school classes. But in HS? </p>
<p>OK, so some students may be more creative, and more expressive with glue sticks and collages. But give the other students a choice of more …well…college prep options. Is that a snooty thing to say? That the students should be offered both the shoe box and glue option for their project as well as the research paper option? To choose the one that suits their needs the best? </p>
<p>Please tell me that my DS will not have poster and shoe box assignments in college. Someone?? Or that they are at least not diarama’s and collages. I can get onboard for the scientific poster displays…</p>
<p>as for papers, I proofread, I will give feedback, and I am someone to bounce ideas off of. I don’t write them. He would not get a very good grade if I did . I am a nurse, we don’t write in complte sentences or use punctuation. At least not well!!</p>
<p>S2 had the option to do an extra credit project for a 4th grade English class (they were studying Shakespeare). He wanted to build a model of the Globe Theatre. Started out fine, but then started getting to more involved stuff and I helped him. Became a fun project we did together. Noone else ever did a project, and when S took it in, I made a point of telling the teacher that while he did lots of work on it, it had become a fun project for BOTH of us. I don’t think it ever was counted as extra credit, but the teacher loved the model.</p>
<p>S2’s pre-IB Bio class required that the kids make a model of a cell. S2 did – by baking a cake and decorating it. Got an A on that one!! The teacher asked him to bake a couple more times after that…</p>
<p>S1 had an honors English class senior year of HS that required a story board for a movie. The teacher expected the kids to download screen shots from a pirated version online to use for the story board. S had drawn his shots, and she gave him a D. At that point she had also failed to record several graded assignments (which she had marked up and handed back, and thank G-d they were still in the bowels of his backpack), so her gave her those materials to record and re-did the story board using the pirated clips. She gave him a B instead of the D.</p>
<p>This all happened the week before graduation – AGH!</p>
<p>My assistance tended to run along the lines of offering and teaching organizational skills – such is life with ADD-inattentive sons. I taught them both to be eagle-eyed proofreaders. If it was a late night and a poster needed to be finished, the kid did the work and I would paste wherever I was told. I would sit down with my kids and review the criteria for an assignment with them to make sure they had covered all their bases. I’d give feedback on a paper if asked.</p>
<p>I rarely see their work in college, but they both are excellent writers so I don’t worry about that. Whether the work gets done on time is another story.</p>
<p>I asked DS about the dreaded Mission project in CA and what he did . He said that the entire class did dioramas, but that they did it in class. Apparently it solved this parent issue. He also said he considered it worthless.</p>
<p>Sue22- Your story reminded me of the diorama my 5th grade S made about fossils.
He entitled it, “FOSSILS OF THE PAST” - as if fossils from the present or future were also options. It’s still sitting in his bookcase and I chuckle every time I see it.
I also remember a favorite science project of 3rd grade D’s - “Does water go through rocks better or sand better?” I don’t know why she thought that was important to know but I thought it was hysterical.</p>
<p>The only poster assignment I’ve had so far in college was for my education class. All of my other projects have been a paper, and maybe a presentation also.</p>
The teacher asked him to bake a couple more times after that…</p>