Friday, May 12, 2006

Moms in the Classroom 

One way public school teaching is vastly different from the private realm is the weight that parents have in the classroom. Where the boarding environment essentially left us teachers in the parental role, here parents come in for project night, check in as they pick up their kids daily, give money and time, and actively bring us yummy faculty appreciation luncheons to die for.

All the more hilarious, then, to hear the following comments as we made Mother's Day Cards* in my 7th and 8th grade computer classes this week.

• Yeah, because every mother wants a card that says "hey mom, watch out for the scary giant bunny!"


• That sucks. You must really hate your mom.


• There's Pearl Jam on the cover because my mom is taking me to a Pearl Jam concert for mother's day.


• There's sharks on mine because my mom is allergic to flowers.


• My mother doesn't like poems. I'm writing her a rap.


• My mom hates me. Can I do something else today?


• Do I have to give this to my mother?


• Now that we did this, I don't have to get a present, too, right Mr. F?


• Hey Farbs, what rhymes with hell?


• Is a greeting card a card?

Ah, the fourteen year old mentality -- gotta love it. The best of the Publisher-produced cards drip sentiment, ooze bittersweet pre-adolescent apologetic glory. Hope the moms appreciate the effort.

*Technically, the activity asked students to make "Mothers or Others' Day Cards". After all, though everyone has a female adult in their life somewhere, not all have moms, or live with 'em. If being preemptive about the possibilities of the modern PC family bothers you, avoid teaching like the plague.

posted by boyhowdy | 9:31 AM |

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Comments:

PRICELESS! There is no other word for those comments!

Maybe it's the age, but parents aren't even that involved at my public school.

And my kids here, when Mom's not in the picture, they call Grandma "Mom" or something like it anyway and naturally make the connection. I recently did an activity in Spanish where students had to tell the ages of different family members, and I just accepted any substitute person or guess they came up with...I hope that was PC enough...

I love this post, in case I did not make that clear!

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:56 AM, May 13, 2006

 

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