In this instance, we w"ere discussing the Periodic Table.
John, "You did the kids' homework?"
Me, "No. I colored."
John, "But that was their homework."
Me, "They're 14. Coloring is not homework."
John, "But the coloring helps you learn it."
Me, "I suppose that would be true if you were required to actually read the table. Which you're not. All you have to do was make it look like the picture in the book."
John, "But the homework helps teach these concepts."
Me, "Well, it doesn't"
John, <to Sam> "What's the atomic number of Helium" (he said some element, I don't remember which one exactly)
Sam, "uuuuhhhh"
Me, "Ask me!"
John, <to Tom> "What's the atomic number of Helium"
Me, "Ask me!"
Tom, "3?"
Me, "Ask me!"
John, "Fine. "What's the atomic number of Helium"
Me, "No idea. Colored the entire table and I haven't a clue."
John, <to Sam> "Which elements are turquoise?"
Sam, "Is that green?"
I rest my case.
A few weeks ago, I reached a entirely new level of piss-off-edness. They came home with a hard bound book, about 10x12, filled with blank pages to which they were to attach various writing assignments they had done over the year and then decorate the pages. A scrapbook. They were making an actual fucking scrapbook. Sam's grading sheet showed 40 pts for "presentation". I asked if he was going to present it to the class. He answered, "No, presentation is how it looks." Jesus Christ, 40 pts for how pretty the scrapbook looks. So I made two scrapbooks and they're fucking gorgeous.
John's big pet peeve is how often they watch video's in Tech Class. And not just on blow-off days like the Friday before spring break when the kids are useless and the teachers are getting caught up on grading and no one cares because I was the same way the day before vacation when I'd gotten everything ready and lined up for the time I'd be gone so my desk was clean and I was kinda just annoying everyone else until the boss says, "why don't you just leave already?", but they're watching videos on all kinds of random days. And they don't even watch educational videos. It's Tech Class, at least watch Apollo 13 or something. Sam spent a week singing a song from fucking Mulan.
So one night at dinner, Sam had had a stellar day and couldn't wait to tell us about it.
He looked up at me, smirking and said, "Know what we did in core class today?"
Me, "Please, no"
Sam, "We made a poster. We had to write Brent (or some name) in bubble letters and decorate it."
Me, "Tell me you're joking." <to john> "Tell me he's joking." <to sam> "She did not use the words 'bubble letters'"
Sam, "Yeah, she did."
Me, "And everyone knew what she meant? I have a real problem with the fact that every one of the 14 year old boys in that class knew what she meant."
Sam, "We have to paste an essay on the back."
Me, "Why can't you just do the damn essay. Are you graded on the poster?"
Sam, "Yes."
Me, "Jesus Ch....."
Sam, <still smirking, turns to John> "Guess what we did in Tech class today?"
John, <drops fork and knife> "Jesus christ"
Sam, "Well, we hadn't finished the end of Galaxy Quest."
Frankly, I'd like to be called into the office to discuss this. Then I could explain that while Sam came home really proud of the work he'd done on his poster, and it was beautiful, don't get me wrong but he'd spent two entire periods of core class making lovely letters spelling out "Brent" and the 'e' was really hard, and sure he did a nice job but I am just a little bit pissed off inside because apparently this was considered 'time well spent' because at no time did the teacher come over and ask, "Why the hell are you still working on this? Write some sentences or something, for god's sake." And YES, Yes! I did make a conscious decision to let the boys play video games while I made the scrape books because I used to know people who were beta testers for Nintendo. They were paid to play video games all day and this was in the 90's when if you played the games for extended hours, you'd get seasick so they also had couches in the office so they could lay down when they were dizzy and they still got paid and sure there are only a handful of beta testers in the country but now there are also a handful of professional video game players and you know how many people are paid to scrape book?
ZERO!
(And don't tell me that doing school work in new and different ways helps to reinforce concepts because they've been coloring and pasting since preschool so that's 11 years of coloring and cutting and pasting. This is not new.)
If I ever decide to home school, it wouldn't be for religious or philosophical reasons. It'll be because I'm sick of glue sticks.
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