Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
First graders when I was in school couldn't do that, because we were learning the alphabet, then. But nowadays, kids learn that in kindergarten, I'm told. If the teacher has demonstrated making a simple family tree back to the grandparents' generation in class, all the kids would have to do is copy that model, and interview their grandparents and parents, to fill in the numbers and birthplace. And photocopy (on the parents' home printer, if there is one) any photos available around the house, if there are any. There may not be any, of a size that would be usable.
So the task could only involve copying the teacher's "tree" (doable in class), and filling in numbers and a city name on each branch, plus the family-members' names. The kids know their parents' names, and may learn grandparents' full names in the process. It sounds like fun.
What kind of grade would the kid who can only do his Mother's (or Father's) side of the family get? After all, there ARE kids out there that have no idea who their Father or Mother really are.
Believe me, watching everybody else in the class extending both branches of their Family Tree while you sit there taking yours back to your great grandparents on your Mother's side is NOT FUN!
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 7 days ago)
35,629 posts, read 17,961,729 times
Reputation: 50652
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
First graders when I was in school couldn't do that, because we were learning the alphabet, then. But nowadays, kids learn that in kindergarten, I'm told. If the teacher has demonstrated making a simple family tree back to the grandparents' generation in class, all the kids would have to do is copy that model, and interview their grandparents and parents, to fill in the numbers and birthplace. And photocopy (on the parents' home printer, if there is one) any photos available around the house, if there are any. There may not be any, of a size that would be usable.
So the task could only involve copying the teacher's "tree" (doable in class), and filling in numbers and a city name on each branch, plus the family-members' names. The kids know their parents' names, and may learn grandparents' full names in the process. It sounds like fun.
The whole point of that assignment was to get your parents to do it, basically while the child watched and maybe copied the text onto the final paper, so you have a sense of your own history. My first graders certainly wouldn't have been allowed to go through old albums and pull photos out and mess with them without my close supervision. Also, I don't know how they'd know the birth and death dates of ancestors, or something interesting about them, without me sitting there telling them.
And that was the point of the exercise. Sit with your parents and get them to open up albums and tell stories.
Which I actually enjoyed. But it was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for some parents. That's a 3 hour assignment - at least - once you go to the store for interesting paper/cardstock to mount this whole thing on.
You may want to find a different school. We found this type of thing is most prevalent at the excessively competitive schools where parents are out to prove they are better people than other parents due to their kid's accomplishments (which are not the kids accomplishments at all).
I remember going to an "Invention Convention" for an elementary school. OUr kids did things like "the lunch picker" or something to entertain a pet. The winners did things like a new foam extrusion process for manufacturing semi-rigid automotive parts. I could not even understand many of the words written ont he poster for this invention and it was all covered with complex mathematical formulas demonstrating how this was a better process than what was currently in use. Proud Daddy was an automotive manufacturing engineer. I guess it all rubbed off on his 10 year old son. During the "invention Convention" Another of the dads came up to me and rattled off his 8 year old son's accomplishments including speaking several languages, composing music and computer programming. He then asked me "What can your son do? " I proudly told him my son can name all 52 Pokemon and tell what their powers are and which ones evolve to which other ones. He snorted and walked away and avoided me the rest of the time we were there.
We got out of that school asap. Our kids came home crying more often than happy. In fact one of our daughters (now a college professor) came home crying every day. We could not get away form that scene fast enough.
If the school wants the kids to do the projects, they need to do them in school where they spend 35 hours a week.
This IS going to happen when they assign kids something like a science fair project or a halloween pumpkin, where the school expects results that are beyond the capability of the children.
There was a little bit of an uprising when my kids were in elementary - parents complained they were tired of having to do school projects. It was true. The school was assigning at home projects that were beyond the scope of what the student could do. For example, a family tree that included grandparents and if possible, great grandparents. Complete with copies of photos, and little paragraphs describing the ancestor with birth and death dates, birth places, etc.
No first grader is capable of that.
Cub scouts have projects where they actually award a "cubbiest" prize, meaning the scout himself did the work rather than mom and dad. : / Because yeah, no kindergartner can actually put together a pinewood derby car by himself that will be competitive.
When I was in school we always celebrated the 100th day of school, which IIRC fell sometime in February. This was when I was very young, early elementary. I remember one year, maybe 1st or 2nd grade, we had to do a project with 100 pennies to reflect the 100 days. We could make anything with the pennies. My mom had to help me. She didn't mind, and she was lucky to be a SAHM, but I can imagine how much more difficult it would be having to do these this type of project for full-time working parents. And I think the pennies project was definitely over my head at the time. I mean, we had to get the pennies ourselves, for one. My mom always kept change in containers in the house, still does, because she would save it then cash it in, so we had 100 pennies and then some. But one main adult task for that project otherwise was to get your hands on 100 pennies.
I remember having to do those family tree projects as well. My mom and dad didn't know some information, and I remember having to call my grandparents. Now that I look back on it, these projects were a lot. I agree that there is a lot of work assigned to be completed outside of school. I even remember doing homework that was sometimes so complicated in early elementary school that my parents couldn't figure it out (terribly worded math problems that could have more than one possible answer or were just very vague).
As a teacher for many years and as a parent I hate how schools have become so competitive. They give projects to very young children that obviously must be done mostly by the parents. What about kids whose parents aren't native English speakers? And kids who simply don't have parents who help?
I always tried to have my kids do their projects on their own but the truth is teachers don't grade fairly either. In 3rd grade my daughter had to capture 8 insects, pin or glue them onto a display, then categorize and write about each one. She happily went outside and did the project. Her insects were not perfect, and I did help her glue them on to a cute display board, but otherwise she did the entire project on her own.
Imagine my surprise when I saw the table at school with all of the other kids' projects. There were professionally-made display boxes with glass panels, perfectly pinned elaborate and rare insects (obviously purchased somewhere) and extensive typed out descriptions. My daughter saw those and wanted to cry as hers stood out but not in a good way. While she got full credit, the other kids got extra credit "for going above and beyond".
I believe you can blame the adoption of Outcome Based Education for "parent-led" projects like this. A lot of educational outcomes (whether a child understands a concept or not) cannot be demonstrated in a flashy, project-like way. But schools feel the pressure so they emphasize projects anyway, even if they clearly are above the abilities of a child to do alone. Parenting has also become a competitive sport, so parents pick up the slack and create this unrealistic expectation for all students.
OP, you could probably show some of these answers to your wife.
I grew up in a very competitive town--it was a long time ago but these towns existed even back then. Science fair in the 1960s--I was the only kid with a home made project; the others were professionally done by the parents.
I remember an Easter egg contest in elementary school. Bring in the prettiest egg. I didn't even bother. The eggs that were brought in had been done by the parents. The eggs had little arms and legs pasted on, pretty faces painted on, clothing, etc. Only one kid had a normal Easter egg. I felt sorry for him and complemented him on his egg.
But at least in the early 1960s parents were not supposed to help kids with their homework. My parents would yell at me to do my homework and they bought me a desk to work at but they almost never helped me with anything. My dad was a teacher so he could have helped but he chose not to. Just once, when I was sick, he did my project for me--a beautiful papier mache world map, brightly painted and beautifully labeled. It was fun taking it to school and having everyone ooooh and aah over it--but I learned absolutely nothing.
I don't know the answer as to how to stop the parents from doing the homework and I think it's very unfair that those kids get credit for their parents' work but I have no answer as to how to stop this practice. The kids will get good grades but they learn nothing, just the same as cheating.
The kids could use their foster parents' names, and g-parents, or create extra branches for their own parents, if they wanted to include them. It's not that taxing a conundrum to figure out. Or were you implying that family-tree assignments should be banned? Not sure what your drift is, here...
OP, you could probably show some of these answers to your wife.
I grew up in a very competitive town--it was a long time ago but these towns existed even back then. Science fair in the 1960s--I was the only kid with a home made project; the others were professionally done by the parents.
I remember an Easter egg contest in elementary school. Bring in the prettiest egg. I didn't even bother. The eggs that were brought in had been done by the parents. The eggs had little arms and legs pasted on, pretty faces painted on, clothing, etc. Only one kid had a normal Easter egg. I felt sorry for him and complemented him on his egg.
But at least in the early 1960s parents were not supposed to help kids with their homework. My parents would yell at me to do my homework and they bought me a desk to work at but they almost never helped me with anything. My dad was a teacher so he could have helped but he chose not to. Just once, when I was sick, he did my project for me--a beautiful papier mache world map, brightly painted and beautifully labeled. It was fun taking it to school and having everyone ooooh and aah over it--but I learned absolutely nothing.
I don't know the answer as to how to stop the parents from doing the homework and I think it's very unfair that those kids get credit for their parents' work but I have no answer as to how to stop this practice. The kids will get good grades but they learn nothing, just the same as cheating.
Haha, wow! My parents would have been incapable of doing a science project. Science was not their field, at all. Fortunately, the schools I was in didn't teach science. Truth. They weren't able to help me with math--algebra, and all. But getting hyper-competitive over Easter eggs is ridiculous. If there had been any Russian or Ukrainian kids, they would have cleaned up; their egg-decorating traditions, basically a form of batik art, are in another category altogether. Clothing, on an egg--LOL! Embarrassing.
The way to stop parents from helping with homework is for the schools to prohibit it. Teachers can tell, when the lower-achieving students turn in brilliant research papers, for example, that are way beyond students' day-to-day class participation capabilities.
What kind of grade would the kid who can only do his Mother's (or Father's) side of the family get? After all, there ARE kids out there that have no idea who their Father or Mother really are.
Believe me, watching everybody else in the class extending both branches of their Family Tree while you sit there taking yours back to your great grandparents on your Mother's side is NOT FUN!
There is no shame in having a 1-sided tree. But ok, I'll take your word for it. A tree that included great-grandparents, if only on 1 side, sounds like a pretty good tree to me, though! In any case, the earlier argument against it was that it was too difficult a task for 1st-graders, which I don't believe it is.
The kids could use their foster parents' names, and g-parents, or create extra branches for their own parents, if they wanted to include them. It's not that taxing a conundrum to figure out. Or were you implying that family-tree assignments should be banned? Not sure what your drift is, here...
A family tree assignment was banned where I live due to the broken families. I'm torn as to whether or not this is a good thing. A kid in a foster home who didn't have access to his grandparents' names would feel horrible, that's for sure. Yet it's a great project for older kids who are capable of doing the work. It ties them personally into history and gets them into interviewing their parents and hearing the family stories.
(I used to teach first grade and I would never give a project like this to a 6 year old. This is for older kids who are learning history, learning about their families, learning how to research a little bit, maybe 5th or 6th grade.)
This is one project that would definitely need family input. But I still think the kid (not a first grader) should be the one doing the cutting and pasting, the typing, and writing of the stories. The parents can provide the information but the kid should do the work. But here we go again...most parents will do it for them and send them off to school with some gorgeous family tree printed out in color from Ancestry.com or maybe even something the parent designs for themselves. Defeats most of the purpose of the assignement.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Truth. They weren't able to help me with math--algebra, and all. But getting hyper-competitive over Easter eggs is ridiculous. If there had been any Russian or Ukrainian kids, they would have cleaned up; their egg-decorating traditions, basically a form of batik art, are in another category altogether. Clothing, on an egg--LOL! Embarrassing.
