Monday, June 2, 2014

Real world homework

I love St. Paul Open School for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the homework.  It has not caused us many battles this year as there is very little doing of stuff for the sake of doing it- like the spelling homework we battled through in years past. Well, except the three-dimensional shapes Eli came to tears over.  It should have been fun, but something went haywire.

Anyway- one day this spring I had Eli making Spanish tapas- he chose a nice fried potato with a spicy tomato sauce, and Theo practicing a TED talk. Theo's class was given the assignment to create a new idea for a children's museum exhibit.  Then pitch it in the form of a TED talk.  Then actually walk down to the Children's Museum, meet with staff, and pitch your idea.  My goodness, the kid took it seriously. As he should have.

Later that same evening, Eli, inspired by his coding class, claimed that trying to hack into our computer and take control of the mouse while I was trying to do some work, could actually be considered homework, and therefore I should quit discouraging him from doing it.  Hmm.  Not sure how I feel about that.

No comments: