Hey...Teacher...leave those projects at school!!!

[morgan98]

Well, yeah. It's the teacher who wants to throw this elaborate fiesta in the first place. Why should the burden of time and expense be put on the students and parents who, if given the option, would rather opt out? Cooking and transporting three courses worth of food for thirty people is an undue burden in terms of homework assignments, nor is there any justifiable reason for assigning such a project. What educational value is there to be had in eating guacamole?

Bottom line, the teacher wants to throw a party. That's fine, I'm sure it will be a welcome change of pace from normal class lessons for both the teacher and students, but don't try to mask what should be an elective fluff activity as mandatory and grade-worthy. Make participation voluntary, for extra credit, or scale it back to chips and soda and have the teacher provide the supplies herself. Or, if that's still too much outside-of-the-classroom work for her, she can skip it altogether and use the class period to teach.

FWIW, I'm surprised schools still allow this kind of thing. With all the potential risks of allergies/cross-contamination/food safety concerns/storage and temperature requirements, you'd think they'd rather avoid this kind of liability. It'd be all too easy for a kid to undercook the chicken enchiladas and infect thirty students with salmonella.

And what about parents who have obligations such as a work schedule that cannot get all of the food to school? Are they supposed to not take a business trip or miss a presentation in order to get everything to school in time for class? This seems like a homework assignment for the parent not for the child.

I firmly believe homework should be something the child can complete pretty much on their own. Now, I am reasonable and think reinforcing concepts or some help here and there is fine, but when the majority of the task falls to the parents that is when it loses value (at least in my opinion).

 

[Kimberlyann11]

Oh, in sixth grade we had the culture dolls. They had to make a doll dressed like someone from our heritage and then give a presentation. It could be fairly simple - they mostly made them with popcicle sticks and paper circles for the head and then we got some cheap plaid cloth (for Scotland) and made a skirt and a little jacket. It turned out pretty good but I did have to remind her to be super careful until class so it didn't fall apart. I also have my grandparents immigration papers from Ellis Island so I let her have some copies of those for her presentation. Handy hint - teachers eat that up.

I asked her if any other kids in her class did Scotland. She said, "Yeah, Austin".
I'm like, "Your friend, Austin?"
"Yeah"
"Austin that walks you home all the time? That Austin?"
"Yep"
"Austin Gonzales?"*
"Uh-huh"
It appears that, although Austin's dad is Puerto Rican, his mom has some scottish in her. Something to remember while we're building a wall.

* Name has been changed, but same demographic.

 

[Disney_traveler]

Sofa pillows en progress.

Pleeeease tell me auto correct is catching you. They are sopapillos, not sofa pillows.

 

[Kimberlyann11]

Ok I graduated in the early 2000s and I can remember we did a lot of projects:
-egg carton seed collection (first grade) 1 type of seed in each egg slot
-20+ Rock collection (2nd grade)
-3rd grade science fair (science fair for every year after that) and a dinosaur diorama, period specific
-4th grade settler or Native American diorama (I did teepee)

These are just the big ones I remember. I know we also had book report dress up days, making posters, teach the class a craft, history of a holiday with parties, show and tell projects, etc

Then in junior high and high school with changing classes it took on even more. Making videos, group skits, group teach a class, elaborate displays, etc

The way my parents and I saw it, the teacher assigned it, so we I did it. It wasn't a "let's go pitch a fit because we don't want to". Money was tight in our house, but we did what we could with what we had and bought what we had too. And back then we didn't have the easy access to the Internet or Pinterest!

If you don't like it so much, go talk to admin. Otherwise suck it up and go.

Or if she doesn't like it so much, "she can suck it up and go" and then vent about it on the Dis. Which is what she's doing. Why should everybody have to go whine to admin about things if they don't like them? Your school must have a line out the door every single morning with parents lined up to whine about a project. What a waste of everybody's time.

This board would be awful boring if we were only allowed to post about rainbows and unicorns.

 

[Disney_traveler]

Or if she doesn't like it so much, "she can suck it up and go" and then vent about it on the Dis. Which is what she's doing. Why should everybody have to go whine to admin about things if they don't like them? Your school must have a line out the door every single morning with parents lined up to whine about a project. What a waste of everybody's time.

This board would be awful boring if we were only allowed to post about rainbows and unicorns.

If you notice I didn't quote OP, I was replying to the whole board. There are several claiming how ridiculous it is. I was just offering my experience. I did that whole thing, and now that I teach at the school, I see they still do. There is not a line out the door. Our parents are more of the "my kids can't handle tests/assignments" variety. We do have the occasional parent "whining" but it's more of the "my child didn't get the grade I think they should have".
Never said anyone couldn't vent either, just offering another perspective.

Have a wonderful day!

 

[DanceswithDisney]

And if anyone doubts the veracity of my story. The finished product is attached with 13 minutes to spare before we leave for school.

 

[kamik86]

So I blame my snowflake in part because of this because I don't know why she did not become part of a group. This was basically dropped on me last week with tomorrow being the only day I could drive. However I still blame the teacher for this assignment and see no educational value in it.

It has put an undue burden on us in time and expense for what is basically a class party in the first five weeks of school. There is also a PowerPoint that had to be done with this but that was not on me at all.

Still to the teachers I say leave the projects at school and stop adding to the parents workload!

I can understand this. I mean we did those types of projects and stuff when I was a kid but most of ours were much smaller, never 3 courses.

Is it possibly your DD just didn't like the other kids or get paired up and didn't think it was a big deal to not be part of a group? The only thing I hated more then projects was group projects. I hated group work as a kid because then I had to worry about if others would do the work or do it right.

I never had the projects where others had to help (besides driving to help get supplies) but maybe I'm old enough to be before that trend

The best projects I liked were the ones where the Teacher gave us a list of projects. Inhigh school even more as many would give us a list of "C" projects "B" projects and "A" projects. Which was the highest grade you could get.

C projects were generally easy stuff you could easily do in a night. B's took a bit of research and preplanning. A's either took a creative element, the ability to really dig into data and digest it, etc.

So you could pick what you wanted to do and how much time you had to spend on something. I definitely did a B projectonce. Had way too much going on that week and knew I could get that done fast. Kids that didn't care about the class beyond if they would pass did the C projects.

 

[mom2rtk]

Preparing an entire meal for class seems like a lot more than is reasonable. I would have found a way for my DD to be part of a group. Is your daughter the only one in class who has an outside activity making it hard to be part of a group?

I wonder how many complete meals were brought in for class?

Did she talk to the teacher to see if there was something more reasonable for her to do that was less than an entire meal from one student since she didn't have the support of a group?

 

[sk!mom]

First of all, I never said or suggested the teacher should pay and shop for the materials. We did contact the teacher and there were no exceptions. Those who were not part of a group had to present all three things. I do feel that if this is a county approved curriculum, then the COUNTY should pay for the materials. Frankly I see no value in providing food in a Spanish class fives weeks into the school year.

I feel parents are unfairly put upon with any of these at home projects. How does someone who does not have the time or the extra funds supposed to handle this? Let their kid get a zero? Talk about selfish!

I'm a teacher and parent who completely agrees!

In terms of learning, what exactly is the ROI?

It seems like a lot of wasted outside time, class time, and money so that a teacher wouldn't have to lesson plan for days. "Let's just all sit around and eat."

I'm not a total fuddy-duddy. I'd be fine with one class day, every now and then, taken up with celebrating culture and tradition. In DD's French classes, they would have a party/food day about once a semester but it was a potluck. It could be purchased. It was also not tied to your grade except as extra credit. Our district is pretty strict about not requiring expensive outside projects.

Good luck OP- Frying Sopapillas and rolling enchiladas first thing in the morning- yuck!

 

[Dawnlight]

And if anyone doubts the veracity of my story. The finished product is attached with 13 minutes to spare before we leave for school.

You are a trooper for pulling that off! I wonder if your child will be the only one to bring in something as nice as what you've prepared. I hope everyone enjoys the fiesta and no one gets food poisoning (not from your food, but others

Thinking about this whole project thing reminded me of a requirement for high school health class that my boys had to do. They needed to prepare a "healthy" meal at home with a protein, carbohydrate, veggies, and fruit. They did not need to bring it in to school; it was done at home, served to family, and a picture was taken and sent to the teacher along with a list of ingredients and a note from the parent asking our opinion of the meal. I thought this was not too bad, as I do want my kids to cook and I want them to generally eat well-balanced meals (I noted on the form that was returned to teacher that it was normal for us to eat this way and it was no way going outside of the box for our family; I think the health teachers assume that all parents are feeding the kids junk and fast food on the regular).

 

[DanceswithDisney]

According to my kid there were five other kids who didn't work with a group and had to make all three.

My biggest concern was not being able to keep the sofa pillows hot ubtil class. I hope it turns out well!

 

[Dentam]

I confess-I lost it near the end of my kid's attendance there. dd had read 'old yeller' when it was announced that the book in a bag was again the assigned project. after uttering some totally inappropriate words to dh I gathered up some stuff to put in the bag along with 2 specific items which I gave dd specific instructions on how to use as her props. dd got up at school the next morning and told the story of poor old yeller.....got to the end where old yeller is thought to have rabies so she pulls from the bag a small stuffed animal puppy and then squirts it's mouth with the can of redi whip I had placed inside for added effect

I purposely didn't attend the classroom presentations that day but I heard from other parents and some of the class aides that the reaction was priceless-the kids couldn't figure out why/some were REALY upset old yeller was getting killed just for eating whipping cream-while the gathered parents and teaching aides were trying their best not to wet their pants b/c of laughing so hard. the teacher however didn't take it to well but it did open up a conversation between her/all the parents about reasonable expectations with class project that didn't entail the parents spending inordinate amounts of time (and in some cases money) to create these stupid bags.

Thanks for the great laugh to start the day here!!

 

[smiths02]

I'm also really surprised they allow outside cooked foods. Even shared snacks need to be all pre-packed items like individual packets of granola bars or snack packages of cookies (of course, only healthy and on the school-approved list :rollseyes

I have kids in daycare and elementary school...and snacks definitely need to be pre-packaged and nut free. HOWEVER, by the time the kids are taking Spanish (not before middle school)...they are old enough to know if they can eat food that someone else cooked.

 

[smiths02]

How could they possibly know? There was a time when it was all we could do to just feed our kids. Not a soul knew, not even family. How would a teacher have any idea what my financial circumstances were unless I told them?

Then you might have to tell the teacher or school social worker or counselor? When I was a kid, I took a class that required a $20 workbook. With all the back to school supplies and whatever, we were that poor that we just couldn't afford it. I told the teacher it would be a few weeks until we could get it. It worked out.

 

[smiths02]

According to my kid there were five other kids who didn't work with a group and had to make all three.

My biggest concern was not being able to keep the sofa pillows hot ubtil class. I hope it turns out well!

Why didn't the teacher just assign those kids a course and a day? Joey--you bring app on Thursday, Lisa--you bring entree on Thursday, Hank--you bring dessert on Thursday.
I'm not quite understanding bringing in a whole meal for 30 people either.

We have food days, but they were always handled more pot luck style. You would make one dish, not three (there were also usually other choices of at home projects)

 

[mom2rtk]

Teacher would not have appreciated me helping my young teen cook an entire meal for the class. I'm so sick right now I'm not even cooking for my own family.

 

[AustinTink]

The projects never end! My DS is a senior and just got the rubric for a senior scrapbook he has to make for AP English over the course of the year. Talk about a pricey project! Also, I'm not the least bit crafty, so he is totally on his own with this one. Lol.

 

[SC Minnie]

I work part time at Michaels craft store and see the amount of money parents spend on schools projects. It is ridiculous.

 

[EMom]

So I blame my snowflake in part because of this because I don't know why she did not become part of a group. This was basically dropped on me last week with tomorrow being the only day I could drive. However I still blame the teacher for this assignment and see no educational value in it.

Your DD made this harder and much more expensive than it had to be for herself and you by not joining a group. Many Mexican/Spanish foods, even in mass quantities, are dirt cheap.

As for the educational value of the assignment, if you think the cuisine of a culture has no value, then it would be hard to convince you this assignment has value. Stick to worksheets, reports, reading, etc. If you ever visit another country, look for McDonald's to play it safe. Avoid "foreign" food.

Seriously, if she learns that it's "sopapillas" instead of sofa pillows, the assignment will have been worth every penny and minute spent.

The bottom line is, your DD caused most of the headache for you when she didn't join a group and call dibs on cheap and easy sopapillas.

 

[mom2rtk]

Your DD made this harder and much more expensive than it had to be for herself and you by not joining a group. Many Mexican/Spanish foods, even in mass quantities, are dirt cheap.

As for the educational value of the assignment, if you think the cuisine of a culture has no value, then it would be hard to convince you this assignment has value. Stick to worksheets, reports, reading, etc. If you ever visit another country, look for McDonald's to play it safe. Avoid "foreign" food.

Seriously, if she learns that it's "sopapillas" instead of sofa pillows, the assignment will have been worth every penny and minute spent.

The bottom line is, your DD caused most of the headache for you when she didn't join a group and call dibs on cheap and easy sopapillas.

I agree. I guess I don't understand why being in an outside activity precludes someone from being in a group. Can't you decide who makes what by text? Or maybe get together for a few minutes on Sunday afternoon or something?

I don't think it's the teacher who made this hard on the OP. It's her daughter.