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the mania for making pictures for science or social studies out of inappropriate materials.
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This reminded me of what happened in a science class in our high school. One particular teacher was really big on projects (honestly ones more appropriate to elementary school) solar systems out of styrofoam, volcanoes, and the like. One project was to make a telescope. One boy, particularly disgusted with all these projects, made his telescope out of a tampon applicator. The telescope project was never repeated in subsequent years ;).</p>
<p>Marite, it sounds like your son went to a wonderful school. </p>
<p>Garland, we too live in a highly diverse (economically, racially & sexually) area, yet it didn't stop D's jr. high school teacher to get his foot in his mouth regarding a genealogical-type project. Kids had to do a major research project about the nation their parents came from. An African-American mom gently pointed out, that for her S and many other African-American kids, that information isn't available for obvious reasons. The assignment itself was odd because this teacher taught this same population of kids for many years - and that idea never before occured to him? So much for 'social' studies in his own classroom! </p>
<p>mkm56 - I bet the tampon-telescope boy went far in life!</p>
<p>I am curious about that genealogy project. How far back were students supposed to go? This reminds me of S's friend who decided to give thanks to the Mayflower for bringing his ancestors to the US (his mom was a Mayflower descendent, but he was adopted from Latin America).
But I think the teacher could have used this incident to talk about slavery. I know my Ss' teachers would have suspended the day's planned lesson to discuss an issue such as this.</p>
<p>"How far back were students supposed to go?"
-- Well, it wasn't actually a genealogoy project - the report was supposed to be on one of your ancestors' country of origin. And since we live in the west (Colorado) there aren't that many instances here of families dating back to the Mayflower. Smile. </p>
<p>"But I think the teacher could have used this incident to talk about slavery"
-- Yes! There were so many ways that teacher could have -- should have -- handled the situation. Suggested, for example, that the student research parts of Africa most affected by the slave trade. Or to research different areas outside of the US where slave trade was practiced. Instead, he seemed miffed the project was even questioned, and then responded rather curtly that the boy in question "just pick some African country." (He actually said that!) This was an older, tired-looking middle-school social studies teacher who probably was sick of teaching, sick of kids. That's the only way I can explain his attitude. I'm afraid it sort of semi-permanently set me against SS teachers.</p>
<p>we had a science project- make a container for an egg, and the egg and container would be dropped two floors- if egg survived, one grade, broke another, and the winner was the team with the lightest container and unbroken egg</p>
<p>the kicker was the the student council kids "loaded" the eggs in container...for my D, it seems they broke egg while putting in project...why those kdis got to do it, well, they were "responsible"</p>
<p>what wasn't taken into account was that with some containers, packing had to be done in a certain way to protect egg, and even with instructions, the snooty student council kids did it wrong almost all the time</p>
<p>our first year, it was a great egg container, looked like an atom, the next year, it was a plastic peanut butter jar filled with sugary cereal....first year, took a couple of hours to build and get right, second year, 5 minutes....what did they learn, not much, as one kid used an empty crayon box filled with paper towel and a sock he did IN CLASS the day it was due, and yes, he won</p>
<p>I remember the gifted social studies class where the teacher assigned each student a project on a different South American country. Report, 3-D "craft", salt-n-flour map, etc. Each kid ended up an expert on his own country, and learned next to nothing about any other. But the teacher had to do absolutely nothing the entire unit.</p>
<p>Same son asked me once why teachers thought gifted kids got more hours in the day than anyone else.</p>
<p>CGM: The egg drop experiment is a standard one. S actually encountered it at a CTY camp. </p>
<p>Binx: I don't mind the teacher doing "absolutely nothing" though I would assume that teacher would maintain discipline and order in class and perhaps supervise some of the activities. The primary aim of education is for students to learn as opposed to teachers teaching. The latter is only the means of achieving the former. </p>
<p>I recall in my schooldays, the teachers teaching relentlessly, in other words, lecturing from beginning to end. But it was not at all clear that most students learned anything. Some did--those who paid attention and could follow. But the majority did not.</p>
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Same son asked me once why teachers thought gifted kids got more hours in the day than anyone else.
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I remember when my D. came home from elementary school crying. When I asked what was wrong, she wailed, "I don't want to be gifted, it just means you have to do a bunch of extra work and I won't get to play".</p>
<p>I didn't mind the eggdrop one as much as others, but come on, some kids stuffed it in a teddy bear....after gutting the bear...it was just charming!!!</p>
<p>I don't get the point of your two posts (the first one did not include a reference to teddy bears). Do you mean to say that the students learned nothing from the experiment? That it was a waste of time? My S was at a 3-week CTY course when he did that experiment.</p>
<p>The egg experiment was often performed at Caltech -- local TV would tape the drop & show the winning design. Though I don't think stuffed teddy bears counted.</p>
<p>My kids did the experiment--so much depends on the rules. My kids always won & had eggs that didn't crack. Styrofoam peanuts & bubblewrap are very handy to help prevent breakage. As they got to higher grade levels, there were more restrictions on what they could use to prevent the egg from cracking & how accurately it had to fall from a height. I still recall them at a friend's house dropping an object to see how accurately they could make it land. (They split the project into parts so they could focus on each part & then combine the results so there wasn't a lot of mess when they were done.)</p>
<p>At our school, for the egg drop project, the kids were only alllowed to use two materials--plastic drinking straws and tape--so it kind of put everyone on an equal footing...</p>
<p>We did the egg drop experiment at school too, as I recall though there was a size limit that made it considerably trickier. Teddy bears wouldn't have cut it.</p>