<h2>“Kids used to be taught that there was such a thing as “centrifugal force.” There isn’t. The force one feels is the effect of inertia when a body is accelerated centripitally.”</h2>
<p>omg… centrifugal versus centripetal… I’m flashing back to my 6th grader patiently explaining the difference to me as though I were an idiot. I was typing his Space Day rover entry for him and everywhere he had written centripetal, I had changed it to centrifugal…thinking ‘poor little guy messed up’. </p>
<p>Got my comeuppance that day…that’s for sure…lol!</p>
This is so pointless! It’s a silly arts & crafts project. She would learn just as much physics by clipping a picture of an amusement park ride out of a magazine & explaining the physics behind that. Were your d’s hot glue gun skills weak & the physics teacher felt obliged to address that?</p>
<p>This reminds me of an esay a disillusioned h.s. English teacher wrote about how watered down instruction had become in his school. Kids used to be required to analyze Shakespeare’s sonnets. This proved too challenging, and over time, the kids’ exposure to Shakespeare consisted of building a paper mache model of the Globe Theatre.</p>
<p>fendrock: Doesn’t this get you nuts? Fun & clever for 3rd graders, but, come on…10th grade? Sounds like a brownie troop making gingerbread houses.</p>
<p>I really think some of these “cute” projects are assigned so teachers can fill up the hallway with attention getting displays as a way to boost their reputations as “creative” teachers. I don’t buy for a minute that there is a correlation between a project with such ridiculous materials requirements and the likelihood of students absorbing the intended lesson.</p>
<p>That project about the cells brought back a great memory hidden for over 40 years in my mind: we had to draw cells that we were looking at through the microscope. And the assignment was accompanied by professional drawings of microscopic cells, which to me, were works of art. I tried my best to make my drawings look even one-tenth as good as those, and had a fleeting desire to grow up and be a professional cell artist. :)</p>
<p>So glad to see that our district isn’t the only one with all of these ridiculous(IMHO) arts and crafts “projects.” I have four kids, now in 8th grade through college freshman, and we have done every single one of the aforementioned projects. It kills me that the teachers fail to take into account that these kids do not have their licenses and therefore necessarily need an hour of the parent’s time (forget about the money) to run and get the supplies (usually on short notice - and heaven forbid if you don’t get to the store early, everyone else has wiped them out and it’s off on a thirty mile quest). </p>
<p>The most infamous project around here was the 3rd grade Salt Map - kids were given a recipie to make homemade salt dough and make a 3-D topography map of our state, on a plywood base. So these third graders needed to use an oven and power tools. And the dough was extremely hard to form into anything, much less mountains and riverbeds. The projects were canned the following year since all of the parents dropped the maps off to the classroom (too large to ride the bus) and collectively told the teachers that they (not their kids) had better get an A!</p>
<p>And don’t even get me started on the middle and high school Winter Break book reports, take home tests and science projects due on Jan 2. Seems like the only ones getting a break this holiday are the teachers.</p>
LOL! One year when my d (in second grade) had to build a Lanapi Indian village (if that’s the proper term), she fell and broke her right elbow. Needless to say, that project was more mine than hers. She is very picky and constantly critiqued my cutting, pasting, and clay molding skills. She did the coloring, painting and lettering with her left hand and it was a less than impressive project. Nothing about the project helped her learn a darn thing about the Lanapis. As she wore a cast, her creative/artistic skills weren’t being developed either. But my patience was sure tested…</p>
<p>chillin, that’s how we operate, except when one’s arm is casted. I asked the teacher if d could be excused from project, as it would have to be completed with heavy parental involvement, but teacher thought she’d get something out of the process anyway. Teacher also said that she expected parental input. But some of those Lanapi villages were amazing works of art coming from 2nd graders. I think the kids just sat & watched their parents go to town.</p>