I heard something very bizarre this week. A friend was helping her son with his history homework (not DT or Home Economics) which was to represent the First World War in a cake. Yes, that’s right, a cake! I can’t think of anything more inappropriate. Not only trivialising the tragedy of the war but also what a waste of valuable resources. The cakes weren’t used for any fundraising, just taken into school. I make an effort every week to reduce our food waste, so I wonder if any of them were actually eaten. I doubt it. In our current economic climate how many families struggled to find the ingredient from their food budget? What can possibly be gained from an activity which, in reality, depends on a parental cake making skills, time and disposable income? Totally baffled!
I agree. I have used cookies to teach about rocks in grade school, and in the old days we used to build missions with sugar cubes. That has long since been shown to have little educational value. Project-based learning is very powerful, but there has to be a strong tie to the curriculum, and even more now with Common Core standards, there must be analytical and argument writing to accompany what they are doing. There is a website for project-based learning, I think it is PBL, and you might recommend it to your child’s teacher. You might also recommend that they join a professional organization for social studies like National Council for the Social Studies, and their affiliate state organization. Sorry to go off on you here, but that is my area of expertise. 🙂 Marsha Ingrao
I couldn’t agree more Marsha.
🙂 thanks for giving me a place to rant! 🙂 It felt good! 🙂
🙂 My pleasure
I would have protested to the powers that be if I had been one of the parents, and my child would not have brought a cake.
I think there were quite a few protesters – I’m not surprised!
The stupidity of some… baffling, as you say! 😉