School Projects: A Parent's Worst Nightmare

The main theme for Sam's third grade school year was major project overload. In the second half of the year, he was assigned two major projects, one right after the other, with no decrease in other homework to allow time to work on it. The second project was assigned in March, with no clear due date or requirements. All we were clear on was that this was to be a family assignment (because doesn't every family need the school to assign them additional opportunities to do things together?!), we were to visit AT LEAST 10 suggested historically important sites in Greenville and complete a scavenger hunt (answering questions for each place), and we were to make a scrapbook about it. As the weeks ticked by, the project evolved. It seemed his teacher was making it up as she went along. First it was a family project, then the students were supposed to do 100% of the scrapbook in class (yeah right, as if that would EVER get done...). They needed pictures for each place. They needed memoribilia for each place. They needed to pen a POEM, a daggum poem, for each place. They needed a certain number of paragraphs within the scrapbook. Then suddenly there was also a paper due. And on and on and on. I emailed the teacher several times, asking for clarification on certain requirements. She got snippy, seemed annoyed that I wanted clearer direction. She wouldn't give a due date. It was supposed to be a major grade. Yet, ultimately, they never ended up turning them in until the last week of school. Me thinks we could have turned in slop at that point and she would have been so over the school year she still would have given him a 100. But I'm not gonna turn in slop. I put blood, sweat, swears, and tears into that dang scrapbook. It's on the bookshelf so that any time Sam feels unloved, he can pull out that scrapbook and say to himself "my mama loves me."

Places we visited:

The Rudolf Anderson Memorial

The Upcountry History Museum

Apparently children are not welcome here. Nathanael had received 4 free passes to the museum in his Pepsi birthday pack. The ladies at the front desk acted like we were trying to con them and were visibly disgusted by the 5 children Robin and I had brought into their quiet, BORING museum. The scaveger hunt requirement for the museum was to tell something interesting learned there. We struggled to find anything interesting. Ugh, it was miserable. In fact, to make things interesting, Sam gave Nathanel a fat lip on the way home. The tooth was already missing.

Museum and Library of Confederate History 

One Saturday, Paul wanted to get some work done around the house, so I planned to take the kids and knock out several places in one trip. First stop: Confederate History Museum. The place was tiny and quiet, and Claire wanted to run loose so she could break everything. Nathanael, the boy who I thought would be in absolute heaven looking at all the old weaponry, got freaked out by a display of old medical tools, including an amputation saw displayed cutting into a bone. (He was afraid to sleep for weeks) After that, Nathanael suddenly needed to go home to poop and our mission to knock out the whole assignment was in ruins.

We did finally knock out the rest in one whirlwind tour of downtown, however, the weekend we were assigned to show Nathanael's class pet a big time (two birds, one stone). We visited a bunch of statues, the Downtown Baptist Church, the Westin Poinsett Hotel, the Peace Center, the Wyche Pavilion, Liberty Bridge, and Springwood Cemetary, which freaked Sam out and he didn't even want to get out of the car to pose for his obligatory photo. 

North Gate Soda Shop

We capped off our tour of downtown Greenville with a stop at an old soda shop, where Sam enjoyed a cherry bomb (chocolate ice cream in cherry Pepsi) and Nathanael got a milkshake.