I had an abusive stepfather for a few (thankfully short) years of my childhood, and he used to deadbolt the front door to keep me from getting out and walking to my grandparents’ house down the street because he didn’t want me telling anyone about the screaming, fighting, hitting, etc., that was going on inside the house. The idea of approaching an “interested ally” about a school project that I couldn’t get my mom and dad to help me with is a horrible joke.
And let’s be clear here; the purpose of these projects isn’t to identify neglected and abused kids and encourage them to ask for help. The purpose is to make sure everyone is getting happy fun “together time”! Which, as I said before, is totally pointless, because either you’re spending time with your kids or you’re not, and if you’re not, a school project isn’t going to fix that.
I hated that mission project. I got so overdosed on missions, living in Southern CA, that I didn’t visit one for about 15 years. IMO the best thing about homeschooling is that I don’t have to build a dang mission. Therefore, naturally, my daughter totally wanted to make one and begged to visit a mission. (Yes, I took her. I even sort of enjoyed it.)
ANYWAY. Schools don’t own family time, and I don’t think they should presume to tell families what to do as a project. School time already takes up the vast majority of a child’s day–6 hours in school, then a couple of hours of homework, at minimum. Families have quite enough of a hard time getting to relax together without an adobe shelter project piled on top. I would just email the teacher, or talk with her, and make it clear that we have neither the time or resources to do a project like that, and it’s an inappropriate request anyway.
On a related note:
Three Thousand Missing Hours
Where does the instructional time go?
By RICHARD F. ELMORE
Harvard Education Letter
Volume 22, Number 6
November/December 2006
I guess we have different experiences. I’m speaking as someone who grew up not abused or neglected, but certainly in less-than-optimal circumstances with a young, flat-broke, inexperienced mother who wanted to do her best (and often did) but didn’t always quite know what I needed. While she didn’t always have energy or time for playtime, she would bust her ass to make sure I was doing what I needed for school.
Projects like these were some of my best school memories, because they gave me some time to discuss with my mother what I was doing for most of my life (at school) and bring these parts of my world together.
Maybe she would have done these things anyway. But I think the school projects really helped guide her into knowing how to be involved in my school life. Young, less-well-educated parents often don’t have the confidence to get involved, and don’t clearly see what they can contribute since they may not have been academic superstars themselves. But just like with rich parents, with poor parents school works best when the parents contribute.
Another example- I remember in fourth grade, we had to do a food log and chart our daily meals. Just like you’d expect, this was not great for poor kids. At the time, I was living mostly off cheap TV dinners, ramen and Taco Bell. My mother had me fake my results because she was so ashamed of what I was eating. As for me, I was so used to living like that that I couldn’t even see what was wrong. I don’t think my mom had even noticed how out of line things had become.
Well, our family eating habits shaped up pretty quickly after that.
Wow. I did the CA Mission project almost 30 years ago. Back then, we did them in class, not at home - spent the better part of a couple of days on building them. Mine was made out of flour dough.
We also had the Mission report, and the field trip that went along with it. I still have the little onyx horse I bought at the Mission gift shop.
Who knew they were still doing it, and that it had evolved into such a “thing”?
Unfortunately my daughter is on the other end of this. She sees her dad MAYBE once a year because he doesn’t give a shit. This year she sent in her family tree with only my side of the family filled out. The teacher sent it back with a note saying it was incomplete. My daughter cried for days. You can imagine the tone of the note I sent back. Needless to say, they will be changing the scope of the project in the future and will grade whatever is in (and NOT assume everyone is a happy little family with a dad, mom, 1.5 kids and a dog!)
Also, this year we have been assigned/completed 2 dioramas and a science project, plus a costume she had to wear while reciting some stupid poem about Christmas (hello…not everyone in the school celebrates Christmas!). I want to tell them that I am also in school and it’s difficult enough finding time to do MY homework, much less all these bullshitty projects that don’t really teach my daughter anything!
Yes, exactly. My son had a family stick. My daughter needs a family bush. 13 years difference, and both have trouble with the project for different reasons.
I can’t believe the teacher gave your daughter grief over her assignment. (Well, sadly, I can, it just makes me sad and angry.) What a clueless idiot.
If I were given a project like that, I would complain to the administration. You’re right, that is absolutely not the business of whatever dumbass assigned that project.
I assume this idiot is a social work instructor? They sound dangerously clueless about BOUNDARIES for being in a profession dealing with mental health.
I really, really shy away from homework projects for exactly this reason: it’s totally inappropriate for me to assign homework to parents, and then grade the kids for it.
I give homework that kids should be able to do by themselves, if they’re paying attention in class. Help from parents is fine, as long as the parent isn’t doing it themselves. But I won’t give a project that requires parental input, because some of my kids have SAH moms who come to every school meeting and are officials in the PTO, and others have SAH moms who are drugged out of their gourd and perpetually stay one step ahead of DSS. I trust the PTO moms to enrich their kids’ lives out of school, and I don’t trust the drugged moms not to turn the project into a reason to berate their kids further.
My job as a teacher is to make 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. as stuffed full of rich learning as I possibly can. Homework is there to practice skills (and frankly, the research I’ve seen suggests it’s primarily there to satisfy parental expectations, that most homework serves little academic purpose). Projects I assign are for the classroom where I supervise.
I agree with you. It’s really offensive that they are just taking it for granted that all the students’ families can afford to waste money on a special kind of clay and that all the parents have the free time and ability to spend doing their kid’s homework (instead of possibly working two jobs, coping with a disability/illness, etc.).
I think it would be worthwhile for you to say something to the teacher even if you are able to afford doing this project - even if just for the sake of the kids and parents who might not be able to afford it but might feel too embarrassed to speak up.
Another note: what sort of art project involves the teacher telling you exactly what to do? That’s terrible pedagogy: if the kid is going to be learning anything, the kid needs to be making some significant decisions in the process.
If your parents can’t come up with a cardboard box, a pair of scissors and two hours time, then you are so completely fucked that fourth grade is not a bad time to start learning that you are going to have to fight this battle (build this mission, etc.) on your own using whatever wits you have. Sixth and seventh grade are coming up, and life is going to throw you some serious, serious shit. And if you don’t have a single adult in your support system, you are going to need to be so freaking strong that you’ll look back on the minor indignities of having an inadequate mission and laugh at how small your problems used to be.
How condescending. The kids who are so completely fucked already realize they’re completely fucked. It’s not my job to rub it in their faces. And yes, they’re going to need to be completely strong in their lives to get out of their awful situation. That doesn’t mean I should throw up roadblocks. And yes, this will be minor in the grand scheme of things. That doesn’t mean it’ll be minor when they’re kids. Your defenses of this project are snidely indefensible.
Having parents who lack two hours time to help you build a mission (or similar project) means you’re fucked? You’re making it sound like everyone who has working parents with limited free time is in Precious-level straits.
Weren’t you the one in that other thread saying we need to cut single parents a bit more slack/be more supportive of them? Saying that single parents who don’t have time to do these kinds of projects have kids who are “completely fucked” hardly seems supportive.
Yes, some kids are completely fucked. Is this a surprising revelation? (Edit: This was in response to even sven’s post, and some people ninja’ed in after me. I tend to agree with Freudian Slit that a parental failure to carve two more hours out of an already-busy schedule does not indicate a general state of fuckitude.)
That doesn’t change the fact that my kid’s teacher is assigning homework to me, which I find to be completely inappropriate and pointless. I’m not in her class. My kid is in her class. Her job description really doesn’t involve “assigning parents homework to make sure they aren’t neglectful.” If she suspects neglect or abuse, there are ways to address that, and trust me, assigning a stupid adobe hut project isn’t one of them.
Yes, I guess we did. That’s great that your mom changed your entire diet because your school sent home a food log. Really, it is. If you think that’s going to be a typical response from most families who have poor eating habits, I have a couple of tickets I’d like to sell you back to reality. And once again (with feeling), assigning homework to parents is, in my opinion, not something schools should be doing anyway. My kid shouldn’t be graded on my ability or inability to complete a project. How insanely ridiculous is that?
Some excellently brilliant teachers still do that. My daughter’s friend’s class did them in class, by groups, so there were about 5 missions total, that several kids had cooperated on. The parents were thrilled.
Bless you, sir. Seriously. My experience with almost all homework at the elementary level, and not just the silly “family projects”, is that it is a useless waste of time, with the sole exception of the additional writing practice that Whatsit Jr. has been doing to help with his fine-motor skills.
So do you think I should write a note to the teacher about this? What should it say? I don’t want to piss her off, just make her more aware of what she is asking.
MsWhatsit-My sense of your opinion on the issue is: some kids may have a lousy home life, so my child shouldn’t get the benefit of their good home life?
I don’t understand this question. If you’re asking why I think it’s ok to deny the benefit of “family projects” to kids with good parents and homes, my answer is that I don’t think those projects benefit anyone. If you’re asking something other than that, you’re going to have to clarify.