I received a call Friday afternoon from J-Man: “You need to call me as soon as possible.” The possibilities raced through my mind—house is on fire, someone is injured, dog ate the new couch, or we’d been burgled. Joe tries not to speak more than a dozen words per day, so it must be serious.
The third of three is now in 7th grade. Her by-3-minutes older brother, in 8th grade keeps a benevolent eye on her during the school days. But, this is all about me, so forget about them for now. Em has learning disabilities. A component of her problems is her inability to focus on instructions (except where sweets and television are concerned—she has the entire Nickelodeon schedule memorized—I wonder if Sponge Bob is available for tutoring). J-Man had called to say that he discovered such instructions, for a major project, which she got fully three weeks ago, stuffed into the bottom of her bookbag. The difficult project, which would require three weeks, was due on Monday.
California kids have incredible numbers of projects. I’ve ridden painfully through three California Missions projects, two solar oven projects, two family tree projects, and other assorted tortures sent home by the teachers (whom I suspect know full well parents will be forced to have a heavy hand in them along the way). Sadists.
At some point, I decided that my time was more valuable than this sick joke they insisted on perpetrating on me. For the second solar oven project, I sent the assignment with J-Man to his father’s house over Spring Break. That worked pretty darned well—now, how to expand upon that idea? Hmmm. A-ha! Recycling! So, in a crunch, when family tree time came again, I pulled out a previous family tree. Em, of course, had to understand all the components and who the people were, then just put her own little flourishes on it and turned it in.
So, J-Man’s 3-D living cell project was today recycled. Em still had to draw out the entire thing and color and label it on paper. But, we have peace throughout the land. Situational ethics—a harried single mom’s key to survival.
Homework can be fun, don't you think? ~ Mike Johanns
(Mike, I could make you giddy, would you like to pop over every night around 5?)
Published on: Nov 6, 2006
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