The end of the school year has come to be associated with “projects” at our household. I am not talking about painting and home improvement projects—but rather school projects. For my teenagers (and for several years now), the last month or two of school has been dedicated to these large, involved, and sometimes expensive, end of the year projects for various classes in school.
I don’t remember having to do so many projects—major papers, multi-faceted group projects, and big presentations when I was in school. One of my daughters told me yesterday that one of her 11th grade teachers suggested that the students consider forming one group with peers who were in more than one class together so they could work on a couple projects (for different classes) at once. At least the teacher was acknowledging that the students had multiple, major projects to work on in multiple classes.
This spring, the projects being worked on include a couple movies, more than one speech, and many big papers (some with oral presentations). Just at the time of year when the weather gets nice and weekends are taken up with soccer games, we’re also running off to the store for supplies for all these projects. Since I’m not an educator, I certainly don’t know all the philosophies and reasons behind all of these end-of-the-school-year projects—but it seems to me that it might be better for the kids to have them spread out throughout the year instead of having so many things to work on as the year comes to a close.
Of course, I have to acknowledge that my reality is skewed by having three kids—all in high school! What might not seem like anything to a family with one child turns into one project after another for a family with multiple children. Too bad the three of them couldn’t form their own “group” and work on all these projects together!
See Also: Preparing Kids To Say Goodbye and Staying Focused at the End of the Year