Appreciation post: My son's school project on families felt like a gut punch

Last Thursday, his teacher had the kids make family trees, and my 8-year-old came home crying because he felt he had to leave me off his to make it 'normal' for the class. I mean, I get the intent, but maybe activities like that need a second look before they're handed out to every kid. Has anyone else had a school assignment just totally miss the mark for your family?

3 comments

3 Comments

avery_roberts672mo ago

Oh man, that's rough. Nothing says "inclusive learning" like an assignment that makes a kid edit out his own parent to fit in. Real forward-thinking stuff there. Maybe next week they can do a fun worksheet on which friends to drop so your social circle looks more traditional.

ivan_schmidt2mo ago

Did you talk to the teacher about it? I had to do that once and they changed the assignment for everyone. Sometimes they just don't realize how it comes across.

the_jade1mo ago

Hold on, is everyone sure the assignment actually asked the kid to edit his parent out? I've seen a few posts about this now, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe the teacher meant something different. Like, maybe it was about choosing one family member to highlight, not literally cutting someone out of a drawing. In my experience, teachers can be really bad at explaining things clearly, and kids can take things super literally. I'm not saying it's fine if that's what happened, but it's worth double-checking. Just my two cents.