I will never understand the teacher's that think it is a great idea to send projects home for the weekend. Really? So as I open my 1st graders backpack Friday afternoon to unload the left over lunch and stacks of paperwork that is always coming home (by the way if we want to know how to save our environment we should start with the elementary schools, good lord the amount of paperwork!) and I find a brightly colored sheet that looks different. I stop to read this sheet before I toss in the recycle bin with the rest of my son's prize work and I need to read twice to comprehend, it goes something like this.."Your son has been chosen to be star of the week, so you need to make a poster board with photos and ...blah...blah...blah..." Oh and the best part is it is due Monday. I am still standing in shock when my son sees me reading his project sheet and starts to talk all excited about how great it is that it is his turn and all I can think of is how am I suppose to get this all done. And then he continues to tell me what Johnny, Bobby and Susie have done so far when they were "Star of the Week!" and it takes everything inside me not to respond with "Well Johnny, Bobby and Susie's parents are on crack okay!", but no I just keep listening with my plastered smile trying not to add more reasons why I will not be in the running for Mother of the Year. So when he is done I respond with "That is great!! This will be so fun!!" I start to think of everything I have to do..that's right I said it..what I have to do for my project..I love how teachers' think these really will be a 7 year olds project. Are they going to the store to get more ink for the printer, and photo paper and poster board and stickers..don't get me started. Homework and me do not have a good history together.
I do not know how parents have time for homework. I understand that the kids are suppose to be doing their homework but in the chaos of life and trying to get dinner, give rides back and forth to sports and activities, feed the dog, throw in some laundry there is always a kid sitting at the table in the middle of this chaos doing homework. So I am the one who helps with homework like this..As I pass back and forth and check on them, I see if they are stuck or just sitting there looking confused and see what has them confused. So if they are filling in a word and the answer is "The" I am the one who goes like it starts with "T" and could have an "h" in the middle and then possibly end with an "e". Then my kid goes "The" and I am like yes you are so smart! And if they are stuck on Math again it could be 7-5 and I am like if you had the number "7" and then took the number "5" away you could possibly be left with "2" and my kid goes then the answer is 2..why yes it is..again you are brilliant! (I see Harvard in the future!) And then the next morning when you are putting their backpacks together and looking at their homework and it is not finished and you did not notice the night before and you finish it for them because you know there will be no time (and believe me it is not easy trying to make it look like they did it and match their writing). So this is how it all began..and probably why I was left off the Mother of the year nominees list..(well one of the reasons)
I will never forget opening my email and seeing the subject line "Re Michael's homework" and as I read it my heart stopped for a second, it went something like this "Mrs O'Neill I was wondering if you could call me regarding Michael's homework. I have noticed that someone else has been doing his homework and did not know if there was a problem....." I was mortified, did not know what to do. I had been caught! What am I going to do? I am so embarassed! There is only one thing I can do at this point...Lie!! So I write back to the teacher and tell her I am so sorry and had no idea that when Michael's older brother was helping him with his homework he was doing some of it for him and it will never happen again...yikes that was a close one! (I am sure she did not believe me and thinks I am crazy!)
So when I woke this morning and the "Star of the Week" was not complete yet and I grabbed the crayons to add some touches I stopped myself...not going down that raod again...
So guilty of this.
ReplyDeletehaha, I thought I was the only one who forged thier kids handwriting!!!
ReplyDeleteLOL...I am so guilty of this. A few years ago, my son had a project where they had to create a box will with pics, etc about a state that was assigned to them. I painted the box, did research on the state, printed of pics of the state, got little trees to glue into the box. There was no way that teacher really thought he had done this project alone...and if he did, I should worry about our educational system more than I already do.
ReplyDeleteBut it doesnt get better...last night my son had to write a paper about sex and the immorality of it from the Bible aspect. Of course, once again, I did the research and typed up most of the paper. (Hard to try to 'write' in a way that you think your child would write cause you know if you go all "college paper" on it, the teacher is going to know something is up). I think he wrote 2 paragraphs out of the whole paper.
The things we moms do to help our children! :)
You are not alone! I have been there, done that. Put the kids to bed, walk by the project due in the morning, realize that they missed some spots when painting it, VIOLA. Kid looks at it in the morning like "what the heck?"
ReplyDeleteI'm paying a tutor to help my youngest son right now. Later we were reviewing for a test and he was stuck on a problem. I said, "Well, you answered it on your homework." He replied, "Yeah, well, the tutor really helped me with it."
Apparently, we aren't the only ones that fill in the blanks!