Thursday, January 26, 2006

Save me from myself

The very last time that I tried to help little lady Pipenza, I was accused of writing her "out there" assignment. Thank you very much, I did type it, I did read her blips of information, and I did ask her very obvious questions, which she then very obviously answered. I might add that she answered them quite beautifully, so beautiful in fact that the teacher blatantly pointed fingers at me, and wanted to know if I wrote the Pips report, or did she.

OUCH.

I bit my tongue with the answer I wanted to give her.

At any rate, the class is back at working on a big assignment. It's speech time in this town; and why not make it a TAD easier on all the chicklets in grade 3, by handing out ideas, with an obvious format in mind, with clear directions as to what 'THE TEACHER' is looking for. That couldn't possibly happen when the lovely teacher person that she is, believes that a speech has to be ABOUT something that involves research. RESEARCH, AND MORE RESEARCH. Holy freaking smokes. How about throw out a format of what a speech looks like... and go from there. The high achievers and black and whites will want facts, facts and more facts. The more facts the better, except with an added punch, as there is the expectation that the speech has to have a little zip in the words to keep the rest of the classroom awake while they fumble through 'THEIR SPEECH'. I am not certain of what the goal is here; public speaking or a research project presented with a smile.

Earlier today while picking up the boy early from school for god knows what reason.... the lovely and loud grade 3 teacher spots me... and stops me... that's always scarey... "the unexpected stop". GOD........I just wanted a quick in and a quick out... hmmmmmm. ANYWAYS.... the lovely and loud teacher then starts talking all about PIP's project, and she is behind, and the lovely and loud teacher wants her to present "these certain details" because "they are interesting"... and on and on and on and on and on...........while standing, listening to her ramble I started thinking in my head... "well who's speech is this anyways?"... and if the Pip wants to interpret her "research" into whatever "details" she wants, shouldn't we just let her be.... because now I feel like pointing fingers at the lovely and loud grade 3 teacher and ask the same question "Who wrote Pip's speech?"

It's a very scarey cruel school world out there..... don't be scared, be very scared!!!!

1 comment:

Susan said...

Dont these projects work out so much better when you help them just a "little"?
Heidi did a speech at that age and she did a great job writing it all down, but when she presented it, despite many "Louder please" promts. No one heard a word of it!