Thursday, October 9, 2008

Mom the pedant

And I'm using the word in the sense of the "a formalist or precisionist in teaching" definition at merriam-webster.com. Two of my three children will be going to school tomorrow with notes appended to their homework pointing out the errors on their worksheets (ingrained rather than child-created errors, the latter of which I must admit it pains me to leave as well). T.'s math worksheet asked the children to fill in the number of certain things in a picture of a scarecrow. Correctly counting the patches, eyes, cheeks, etc. was supposed to then equal the number of yet more items in the picture. This was simplistic and stupid anyway but when the number of eyes (2 for the scarecrow and 1 for the bird on his arm was really intended to only be 2 so that it, plus the scarecrow's 1 nose would equal the 3 patches) I had to write a note explaining why I was fine with 3 eyes + 1 nose = 3 patches. Grumbling my little heart out about faulty worksheets, I then turned to helping R. spell the answers on her worksheet. (She can't spell her way out of a paper bag.) She had to complete a Revolutionary War crossword that needed "neccessities" [sic] in order to be correct. At first we were just leaving the final space blank in protest but it turns out that the creator of the crossword really did need that second "C" in order to make the word colony. Argh!!!! Another note on another worksheet. I'm certain worksheets when I was small were just as faulty but this makes me nuts (as if there had ever been any doubt). I wonder if the teachers have used these before, vetted them before using them, have had other complaints and continue to use them anyway, what? And yes, I realize I'm going to be the mom no teacher wants from now on so my children will probably draw the worst teachers in the schools from here on out. But if inane homework must come home, at least let it be error-free. Rant over.

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