# School projects, Stepford children, and coping with feelings of inadequacy **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988 "2012-08-29T01:01:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cold\_April](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cold\_April](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cold_April)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/61 "2012-08-31T21:23:11Z")
Yes, personalised learning is the answer to all kinds of inequalities in the classroom and at home, and the UK system has that belief as a central tenet of its education policy. And I would never wish to limit the potential of kids who do have the advantage of ready access to technology, or any other resource. But I object to the assumption that sustained and convenient access to technology is a given. It isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/62 "2012-08-31T21:27:50Z")
> [@Cold\_April](#): > > Yes, personalised learning is the answer to all kinds of inequalities in the classroom and at home, and the UK system has that belief as a central tenet of its education policy. And I would never wish to limit the potential of kids who do have the advantage of ready access to technology, or any other resource. > > But I object to the assumption that sustained and convenient access to technology is a given. It isn’t. Wait what? I explicitly stated that understanding socioeconomic factors in a child’s life were part of providing for personalised learning, so if a child has no computer at home or easily accessible you don’t set computer work for homework, it’s not achievable. ---
**Author:** ![Cold\_April](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cold\_April](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cold_April)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/63 "2012-08-31T21:41:24Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Wait what? > > I explicitly stated that understanding socioeconomic factors in a child’s life were part of providing for personalised learning, so if a child has no computer at home or easily accessible you don’t set computer work for homework, it’s not achievable. Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear, I completely agree with you. This was my original debate with colleagues who were perfectly happy to set computer homework for all children regardless of their home circumstances. Some of them seemed to be working under the assumption that access to technology was just like water coming out of taps. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/64 "2012-08-31T21:54:35Z")
OP, I think you did really well. I came to this thread late, and it’s kind of moved on, but the projects thing reminds me of my seventh grade science fair. Mine was on optimizing the pH of a solution used for watering soybeans. When I went to the science fair, there were lots of extremely slick-looking, almost-professional-looking displays of volcanos and so on, as well as an amazing medical research project, at least high-school level, maybe even college-level, done by a girl whose father was a doctor. This girl won first place. I won second place. I was totally shocked by this and asked one of the judges (whom I was taking a class with) how this had possibly happened when there were so many other much more amazing-looking projects. He told me that mine was one of the very few that actually asked a question I didn’t know the answer to ahead of time, and although he didn’t come right out and say “…and we had to give Marie first place because her project was the best, but we all know Marie’s father did her project for her,” he somehow managed to imply it without saying anything incriminating 🙂 I think the moral of this story is simply that, especially as one gets older, there _are_ people who can tell the difference and who know what’s what… ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/65 "2012-09-01T00:53:27Z")
> [@lokij](#): > > with my daughter was explaining the law of diminishing returns. My daughter has had several projects over the years and with the exception of a couple of fun non-graded ones we’ve been very careful not to involve ourselves in them. I’ll give advice, I’ll make suggestions.. I’ll purchase reasonable materials but I never wanted to be one of “those” dads that took over everything. She has run into some of the same issues as your daughter, projects that were plainly superior either by extraordinary effort or parental involvement. In those cases I asked her if she learned the underlying information the project was about.. always a yes. I then asked her if she expected a good grade, which she always got because her work is nearly always of good quality and conceptually solid, and she said yeah. Then it was a successful project. Spending more time and money on something than you need for an optimal outcome isn’t a good idea, always define your goals. Now, if my daughter’s goal had been to have the BEST project in the class.. that would be different but she didn’t feel that way. She understands that competition is important but not everything needs to be one. I would like to second this. It fits right in with the goal of teaching her to schedule her work: set yourself a goal. Maybe you could also discuss what other things she managed to accomplish, experience and learn during the course of the project, that she would’ve missed out on if she had given 300% (with, as mentioned above, no added reward). ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/66 "2012-09-01T08:05:28Z")
There’s research being done that praising kids for their intelligence is bad, because they learn to only try what will make them look the smartest. Praise the effort instead. And as mentioned above, praise her project-management skills. That’s a very valuable skill for someone so young. Project- and time-management will take her a lot further in life than having her parents do the project for her (which, in the case of her classmates, assuredly happened). 9-year-olds can definitely be creative, of course… but unless she’s in a school with a strong art emphasis or a school for the super-gifted, there’s no way all those ideas were student-originated. When I was 9, my idea of creativity would be drawing Ninja Turtles onto the map, you know? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/67 "2012-09-01T14:38:29Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Absolutely. > > I had a 7 year old child in one of my classes (in a London school) who, on receiving a new pair of PE plimsolls (costing \<$5), actually ran around the class and communal study area showing everyone the shoes with a massive smile on his face and tears streaming from his eyes. The same child came to school with toothache so severe that he was crying by lunchtime. This continued for close to a fortnight before his mother took him to the dentist (a filling had fallen out and he had a massive hole in his molar). If a mother is unable/unwilling to take a child to the bloody dentist (at zero cost to her except time) how likely is she going to be to take him to the library for his homework? > > There would be absolutely no point in setting a homework task that involved the Internet for that child, much better to send him home with some photocopied worksheets, at least he then has a reasonable chance of achieving something. That child breaks my heart. The digital divide is alive and well and those who have easy, convenient access to modern technology tend to live a weird bubble. To quote Everlast, “Where you end up depends on where you start.” Some people don’t realize what massive head starts they have. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988/68 "2012-09-01T15:32:29Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > That child breaks my heart. He was possibly the most cheerful child I have ever met, despite his shitty home-life. A truly sweet child who has been dealt a really crappy hand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-projects-stepford-children-and-coping-with-feelings-of-inadequacy/632988.md?page=3)