Today is report card day, btw.
Nov. 15th, 2011 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyOr it was for Evangeline. Ana isn't getting hers until her mother fills out the lunch form. Jenn swears she filled it out already, but the school lost it. Regardless, that report card is being held hostage until the form is in. (Again?)
I told her not sending it in (again) would come back to bite her in the butt! Ana, of course, thinks this is a reprieve - another day until we find out the terrible truth about her writing, or lack thereof! (Newsflash, Ana, we already know about you and writing.)
Anyway, Evangeline and I sat at the table doing this poster for class which I could've sworn was due at the end of the week, but apparently was due today. It was on her heritage, which tangentially is related to Thanksgiving in teachers' minds.
Sometimes I wonder if teachers ever consider that a student may have heritage from multiple sources. From our side of the family alone we've got Belgian, Russian, and of course, American. (Yes, that's a heritage too. My grandmother was a DAR. A member of the DAR? Whatever.) And then there's her dad's side as well, of course.
That's one chopped up poster. For "American" Evangeline decided to make a model of a hand turkey (because there wasn't enough room for her hand) to represent "the ones that we kill for Thanksgiving". And as she's coloring, she asked me "What's this holiday for again?"
You really shouldn't ask me questions like that, because my answer is the perfect truth: "It roughly commemorates the Pilgrims being thankful that God sent a plague to wipe out the original inhabitants of their landing spot so they didn't have to fight off the Native Americans and also could rob their graves and seed so they didn't starve that winter."
The nieces are used to this sort of thing, but I noticed Ana at the other end of the table was kinda giving me the 0.0 look over her book. The one that indicates she was unaware of this aspect of the holiday, but doesn't exactly want me to continue talking either for fear I'll keep on talking. That or she was constipated.... (But by now she's so used to it she sometimes comes up with her own commentary on situations, and it matches mine eerily. One such thing happened today on the walk home from the library, but damn if I remember.)
At any rate, all this reminded me that history is another subject on the list of Things I'm Not Sure I Trust The Schools Not To Fuck Up, along with math and sometimes spelling.
I've long since thought history should be taught largely with primary documents, whenever possible. (And, to go along with this, there should be a much greater emphasis on current events. It should NOT be newspaper book reports!) But I'm not sure I know enough about history to take that approach in inoculating the niecelings against the damage that's sure to come from the standard middle school American History course (followed by global and then American History all over again in high school). Any help is greatly appreciated and needed.
Also, thank you, lady_angelina, for the puzzle magazine :) I meant to thank you, and then flaked out.
I told her not sending it in (again) would come back to bite her in the butt! Ana, of course, thinks this is a reprieve - another day until we find out the terrible truth about her writing, or lack thereof! (Newsflash, Ana, we already know about you and writing.)
Anyway, Evangeline and I sat at the table doing this poster for class which I could've sworn was due at the end of the week, but apparently was due today. It was on her heritage, which tangentially is related to Thanksgiving in teachers' minds.
Sometimes I wonder if teachers ever consider that a student may have heritage from multiple sources. From our side of the family alone we've got Belgian, Russian, and of course, American. (Yes, that's a heritage too. My grandmother was a DAR. A member of the DAR? Whatever.) And then there's her dad's side as well, of course.
That's one chopped up poster. For "American" Evangeline decided to make a model of a hand turkey (because there wasn't enough room for her hand) to represent "the ones that we kill for Thanksgiving". And as she's coloring, she asked me "What's this holiday for again?"
You really shouldn't ask me questions like that, because my answer is the perfect truth: "It roughly commemorates the Pilgrims being thankful that God sent a plague to wipe out the original inhabitants of their landing spot so they didn't have to fight off the Native Americans and also could rob their graves and seed so they didn't starve that winter."
The nieces are used to this sort of thing, but I noticed Ana at the other end of the table was kinda giving me the 0.0 look over her book. The one that indicates she was unaware of this aspect of the holiday, but doesn't exactly want me to continue talking either for fear I'll keep on talking. That or she was constipated.... (But by now she's so used to it she sometimes comes up with her own commentary on situations, and it matches mine eerily. One such thing happened today on the walk home from the library, but damn if I remember.)
At any rate, all this reminded me that history is another subject on the list of Things I'm Not Sure I Trust The Schools Not To Fuck Up, along with math and sometimes spelling.
I've long since thought history should be taught largely with primary documents, whenever possible. (And, to go along with this, there should be a much greater emphasis on current events. It should NOT be newspaper book reports!) But I'm not sure I know enough about history to take that approach in inoculating the niecelings against the damage that's sure to come from the standard middle school American History course (followed by global and then American History all over again in high school). Any help is greatly appreciated and needed.
Also, thank you, lady_angelina, for the puzzle magazine :) I meant to thank you, and then flaked out.
