Responsibility

Last week Nathan's teacher sent a newsletter home informing the parents of some upcoming plans for classroom activities.

This year, apparently, they begin show-and-tell.

But not just any show-and-tell. They are also doing a letter of the week, and every week each child is to bring in something to sow-and-tell which begins with the letter of the week.

I think this is a fabulous idea. It requires a little thinking and planning, but should be interesting. Nathan is already making things up in order to bring in his favorite items. The letter is D. "I'll bring Miga (a stuffed animal.) His middle name is Doug. That starts with D."

The rest of the newsletter bothered me. In order to space the show-and-tells out, each child has been assigned a different day of the week. Kathy and John on Monday, Nathan and Will on Wednesday, etc. This makes sense, right?

But the newsletter said that "in order to teach your child responsibility" they would not be allowed to make up their show-and-tell should they forget to bring it in on their own day. They would have to wait a week.

And I just had to laugh. Responsibility? These kids are four years old! Nathan is a smart cookie, but he doesn't know what day of the week it is, and when you tell him, he doesn't know if he's even going to school on that day. There is NO WAY he'll be able to remember to select his alphabetically correct show-and-tell item and remember to bring it in on a specific day of the week. Who are these teachers kidding? The ones that are learning responsibility are the parents. Do we really have to pretend the kids are involved here?