School Projects

I didn’t hate school.  I didn’t always enjoy attending, but I’ve always loved to learn.  I like to read, and I like to participate in discussions.  I do not like projects.

I do not like oral reports, demonstrations, anything involving a diorama or posterboard or a costume… I’d rather just write an essay. 

I thought after graduating high school, I was done with projects.  Granted, I still had a few oral reports, particularly in Speech 101, but no more glue and scissors and rulers.

Then, I had children.  And they grew.  They grew so much they were old enough to do their own projects.  I encouraged them to be involved.  I let them take advanced classes.  And now I have projects.

Science Fair 2010.  The projects have to be turned in on  the first day back from Christmas break.  Do you know what that means? 

It means the last two weeks have had this project hanging over my head.  Oh they’re my kids’ projects, but they didn’t care.  I had to drag them to the library, needle them until they made a decision on what they wanted to do, and force-feed the reading material. 

So the last two days have been full of “read that, type that, glue that, cut that, get back here and work on your project!”  I’ve had to learn stuff so that I can explain it to my children.  I’ve had to mess with word processing and data entry and printers that don’t want to cooperate.  We ran out of rubber cement and had to beg from the neighbor for enough glue to finish.  All this in a lake effect snow storm that kept us more or less confined to home.

But I, I mean we, finished the projects a day ahead of schedule, and the kids really did a nice job.  I certainly hope I, I mean they, get nice blue ribbons to show for it.  Projects.  Bah!