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

[pryncess527]

Our French teacher invited us to her house every christmas to make a Buche de Noel. It was a great chance to learn about French culture and how the celebrate Christmas, but our school wasn't set up for cooking and the point was for us to do it together, so she did it on her own time, at her home, on her own dime. She did not have to, but things like that are why she was everyone's favorite French teacher

I remember having many at home projects, both cooking and otherwise, as a kid. I remember making a model of a cell with jello and other edible food with a friend for a Bio class. It was fun, and is probably why I still remember a bunch about the interior of a cell.

Even though I have fond memories of these projects and the lessons I learned from them though, in chatting with my husband a few years ago I realized he had a very different response to those same projects (we were in school together). His parents did not have high school diplomas and felt very ill-equipped to help him with things. Whereas I had access to fun tools that made my projects look great (like the awesome die cutter set for making letters I could use in the teacher workroom at my mom's school in the afternoons), my husband had a mother who yelled at him when he told her he needed to go to the store for supplies, who made him feel guilty for costing the family money they could not spare, and generally turned the entire experience into a very stressful family fight. He wasn't a reduced lunch kid, so none of our teachers would have known how those projects made his homelife hell. I was in class with him and had no idea. But it really opened my eyes to how these things create very different experiences

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Our French teacher invited us to her house every christmas to make a Buche de Noel. It was a great chance to learn about French culture and how the celebrate Christmas, but our school wasn't set up for cooking and the point was for us to do it together, so she did it on her own time, at her home, on her own dime. She did not have to, but things like that are why she was everyone's favorite French teacher

I remember having many at home projects, both cooking and otherwise, as a kid. I remember making a model of a cell with jello and other edible food with a friend for a Bio class. It was fun, and is probably why I still remember a bunch about the interior of a cell.

Even though I have fond memories of these projects and the lessons I learned from them though, in chatting with my husband a few years ago I realized he had a very different response to those same projects (we were in school together). His parents did not have high school diplomas and felt very ill-equipped to help him with things. Whereas I had access to fun tools that made my projects look great (like the awesome die cutter set for making letters I could use in the teacher workroom at my mom's school in the afternoons), my husband had a mother who yelled at him when he told her he needed to go to the store for supplies, who made him feel guilty for costing the family money they could not spare, and generally turned the entire experience into a very stressful family fight. He wasn't a reduced lunch kid, so none of our teachers would have known how those projects made his homelife hell. I was in class with him and had no idea. But it really opened my eyes to how these things create very different experiences

I must've completely spaced out in biology class for weeks on end because the first time I heard about that project was the night before it was due when my friend mentioned it on the phone. Ten o'clock at night, no supplies, and I end up gluing a bunch of crap to a paper plate. The next day I had to argue with the teacher that a paper plate with garbage glued to it is, in fact, a three dimensional object, and I dared her to tell me otherwise. Being a woman of science, she knew she couldn't win the argument and accepted my project.

 

[smiths02]

Our French teacher invited us to her house every christmas to make a Buche de Noel. It was a great chance to learn about French culture and how the celebrate Christmas, but our school wasn't set up for cooking and the point was for us to do it together, so she did it on her own time, at her home, on her own dime. She did not have to, but things like that are why she was everyone's favorite French teacher

I remember having many at home projects, both cooking and otherwise, as a kid. I remember making a model of a cell with jello and other edible food with a friend for a Bio class. It was fun, and is probably why I still remember a bunch about the interior of a cell.

Even though I have fond memories of these projects and the lessons I learned from them though, in chatting with my husband a few years ago I realized he had a very different response to those same projects (we were in school together). His parents did not have high school diplomas and felt very ill-equipped to help him with things. Whereas I had access to fun tools that made my projects look great (like the awesome die cutter set for making letters I could use in the teacher workroom at my mom's school in the afternoons), my husband had a mother who yelled at him when he told her he needed to go to the store for supplies, who made him feel guilty for costing the family money they could not spare, and generally turned the entire experience into a very stressful family fight. He wasn't a reduced lunch kid, so none of our teachers would have known how those projects made his homelife hell. I was in class with him and had no idea. But it really opened my eyes to how these things create very different experiences

My teachers almost always allowed a research paper/book report instead of a project. Almost NO ONE ever chose that option, but I was really unpopular and poor with limited transportation (meeting at someone's house on the weekend was hard if they weren't walking distance), so I chose the paper option a few times. The paper option was always way more work for me, though.

 

[DanceswithDisney]

Waiting to hear back from my kid on how it went. We made extra sofa pillows to give to the other teachers. Yes my daughter made it hard by not joining the group. The teacher for assigning such a silly project AND requiring those not part of a group to produce all three put an undue burden on us with time and money.

This type of thing should be optional and at the end of the year not FIVE WEEKS IN. It has zero value in teaching how to speak Spanish. Yes it was fun and it all worked out I think...but I have every right to complain about teachers like this who assign projects that cannot be completed in class and therefore require a parent to spend time and money helping provide the materials to produce such a project AND take time off from work to drive to school.

 

[mom2rtk]

Do you get to take a drink every time you use the term "sofa pillows"?

 

[gwynne]

Waiting to hear back from my kid on how it went. We made extra sofa pillows to give to the other teachers. Yes my daughter made it hard by not joining the group. The teacher for assigning such a silly project AND requiring those not part of a group to produce all three put an undue burden on us with time and money.

This type of thing should be optional and at the end of the year not FIVE WEEKS IN. It has zero value in teaching how to speak Spanish. Yes it was fun and it all worked out I think...but I have every right to complain about teachers like this who assign projects that cannot be completed in class and therefore require a parent to spend time and money helping provide the materials to produce such a project AND take time off from work to drive to school.

Sounds like everything got done.

May I give some unasked for advice?
You might sit down with her and make sure she understands that part of the assignment was joining a group. Even if it worked out this time, you want her to get that this step may be important. Quickly find a group you can work with, get busy, and complete the assignment in a timely manner.
It's a good habit to get into and it makes things much less stressful both in the years before college and beyond.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Do you get to take a drink every time you use the term "sofa pillows"?

See how useless this project was? When it was all said and done they still hadn't learned how to say it in Spanish.

 

[EMom]

Five kids plus your daughter opted to not join 3 person groups. So 5 + 1 = 6 means there should have been two additional groups. Unless the instructions forced the groups to work at one person's home, there is no reason each member couldn't do ONE course at their individual homes and bring ONE course to school. Again, sopapillas are cheap and easy to make, as are many Mexican/Spanish foods. Had she joined a group and chosen SOPAPILLAS, you probably would have had all the ingredients already.

I don't like group projects, but they are a fact of school life, so I have tried (sometimes with less success than other times) to teach DD how to play the game. Pick the smart kids. Avoid the slackers. Pick your part (course) first and pick an easy/inexpensive task...like sopapillas. If she is college bound, she will have to do group projects. She needs to get used to it.

If you look over the curriculum, you will probably notice taking Spanish isn't just about learning how to how to pronounce Spanish words. (To that end, you and DD might try mastering "sopapillas.") There will likely be something in there about the culture as well. And again, cuisine is part of the culture.

As much as I'm not a fan of group projects, it really seems your DD is the one who made a mess of things this time, not the teacher. Your DD chose to not belong to a group and the consequence was doing the entire project. Upon hearing that, she should have said, "Ummm, I'll join a group after all," and snagged two of the other refusers. Your DD doesn't get to set the terms of the assignment. It doesn't work that way.

 

[EMom]

See how useless this project was? When it was all said and done they still hadn't learned how to say it in Spanish.

Apparently, they don't even understand that it is food and think it's a furniture accessory.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Apparently, they don't even understand that it is food and think it's a furniture accessory.

It's okay to put decorative sofa pillows on the sofrito, but not on the dining room churros because then there wouldn't be enough room for your big flan arroz.

 

[DawnM]

I haven't verified this yet, as I am new, but our district has moved away from homemade items, even in a class like that. One teacher told me she used to have international day and students would bring in food to share, but they have had to stop that due to food allergies, legalities, etc....

That makes me sad.

 

[DanceswithDisney]

Kid dropped this on me and I put blame on kid. I have no idea of the dynamics of the class. I emailed the teacher who assigned the project and she said all groups chosen, those who are not part of a group have to do all three. No exceptions. So Yes I blame the teacher for this silly assignment. Kid chose the menu, when she chose sofa pillows for instance, we had to purchase the ingredients as we do not have lard or flour in our house much less oil or a fryer. It was NOT some easy peasy project. Even if it was ONE item, trying to shop for the items, put it together and transport it was NOT an easy task for everyone.

Silly assignment offering zero educational instruction on how to speak Spanish. Come up with this at the end of the year okay but not FIVE weeks into the school year and also we had one week's notice.

Still she was proud of it and it all worked out. It looked good and I hoped it tasted good.

 

[DopeyDame]

I think a lot of times the problem isn't the assignment itself, but the parents expectations that go along with it.

Assignments should be done by the child - even challenging ones! Except for safety issues, let the kid do it. Obviously sometimes you might need to drive the kid to get supplies, but other than that, leave it up to the child to do it at their own appropriate age level. Someone above mentioned a "book in a bag" project - that sounds super cute and 100% doable entirely by a child. Sure, there might not have been a whipped cream demonstration, but I bet your child would have come up with something fun and creative to tell the story all by herself. (Not picking on that poster, it's just an example that stuck with my because it was a funny story And most 3rd or 4th graders should easily be able to make some home made guacamole by themselves. Again, it might not be as good as the mexican restaurant down the street, but who cares?

I was so pleasantly surprised when I was judging the science fair at my son's elem school last year. The science director had really stressed that it should be the kids who do the projects, and most of the projects were very clearly done BY THE CHILD. Many of them were handwritten and the projects were simple and some didn't make a whole lot of sense. Not a single one of them would have won any state competition, but I'm totally confident that they all learned a heck of a lot more about the scientific process than the kids who followed some cook-book experiment online and had mommy and daddy do 75% of it.

I bet most teachers can easily tell what is done by the child and what is done by the parents, and that a huge majority of teachers would rather a project that looks worse, but that was actually done by the child.

 

[mom2rtk]

Kid dropped this on me and I put blame on kid. I have no idea of the dynamics of the class. I emailed the teacher who assigned the project and she said all groups chosen, those who are not part of a group have to do all three. No exceptions. So Yes I blame the teacher for this silly assignment. Kid chose the menu, when she chose sofa pillows for instance, we had to purchase the ingredients as we do not have lard or flour in our house much less oil or a fryer. It was NOT some easy peasy project. Even if it was ONE item, trying to shop for the items, put it together and transport it was NOT an easy task for everyone.

Silly assignment offering zero educational instruction on how to speak Spanish. Come up with this at the end of the year okay but not FIVE weeks into the school year and also we had one week's notice.

Still she was proud of it and it all worked out. It looked good and I hoped it tasted good.

Who says Spanish class is only about learning to speak the language?

 

[EMom]

Kid dropped this on me and I put blame on kid. I have no idea of the dynamics of the class. I emailed the teacher who assigned the project and she said all groups chosen, those who are not part of a group have to do all three. No exceptions. So Yes I blame the teacher for this silly assignment. Kid chose the menu, when she chose sofa pillows for instance, we had to purchase the ingredients as we do not have lard or flour in our house much less oil or a fryer. It was NOT some easy peasy project. Even if it was ONE item, trying to shop for the items, put it together and transport it was NOT an easy task for everyone.

Silly assignment offering zero educational instruction on how to speak Spanish. Come up with this at the end of the year okay but not FIVE weeks into the school year and also we had one week's notice.

Still she was proud of it and it all worked out. It looked good and I hoped it tasted good.

There may well be no point trying to make you see any viewpoint other than your own. Your DD opted out of joining a group, so yes, "all groups were chosen" and she wasn't in once by her own choice. Therefore, she had to do the whole assignment instead of 1/3 of it. She created the problem. Her fault entirely. Not the teacher's.

Many of us have pointed out the value of this assignment, but you insist it is silly because it doesn't teach her how to speak Spanish. Perhaps an online foreign language class would be a better fit. You don't seem to value the cultural aspect of the class at all. You claim to value learning how to speak Spanish, yet continue to use the Spanish equivalent of pusketti (spaghetti) by calling sopapillas "sofa pillows." So it doesn't seem that proper Spanish really matters to you after all.

A week is a decent amount of notice to go to the grocery store, and maybe there was even more, but your daughter failed to tell you about it. At any rate, she made this harder than it had to be and your beef out to be with her and not with a teacher who tried to spice up what is often a fairly dull class. I'd encourage her to look at the 5 other kids who refused to do the group project and decide which of them might make good future project partners. The two of you can choose to be flexible, take good advice when given, stop blaming the teacher and learn from past mistakes. Or not. Completely up to the two of you.

 

[DanceswithDisney]

Who says Spanish class is only about learning to speak the language?

Then keep it in the classroom and as per the point of this post do them at school, do not put undue burden on parents to go spend money AND time going around town for them. Have a class party great, give more than a week's notice and do it as potluck...don't have groups of kids or one kids each bringing in an appetizer, main dish and dessert. None of the recipes or instructions were in Spanish by the way.

Kid did not join other groups because kid thought soccer would conflict as it has taken over our life this season. So it really wasn't HER choice! I don't blame the kid for trying not to schedule a time to work with others. I do blame the teacher for this to begin with and unfairly burdening the kid and the teacher by causing extra work. Zero value at all.

Secondly, imagine if EVERY teacher assigned a work at home project in the 5th week of work to be done at the same time. Then some of you who think it no big deal would be singing a different tune!

 

[DanceswithDisney]

Update: The sofa pillows were a huge hit. The others sadly not so much.

 

[mom2rtk]

My daughter is in Spanish III this year and they are doing mostly grammatical stuff from a book. After loving both Spanish I and Spanish II, she now really dislikes the class. She would love more project based learning. But she also knows I'm not going to get up and help prepare a 3 course Spanish meal before school.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

Sorry, but I just don't see the problem. It's basically another homework assignment/project. They've been assigned in schools forever. Some require a little more work than others, but it's still just an outside assignment. My kids are just as busy as anyone else's - soccer, cross country, basketball, tennis, band, etc. Both dh and I work full time. Homework and projects still have to get done. Do I like when my kids get assigned these projects? Nope. The invention fair for my dd11 last year in 5th grade was particularly hellish, but she and her partner did it with a little help from us. Do people just think homework shouldn't be assigned anymore because we're putting our kids in too many activities? That's kind of ridiculous to me.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

If you look over the curriculum, you will probably notice taking Spanish isn't just about learning how to how to pronounce Spanish words. (To that end, you and DD might try mastering "sopapillas.") There will likely be something in there about the culture as well. And again, cuisine is part of the culture.

.

One doesn't have to assign a home economics project to teach about cuisine.