oh, my brother and his girlfriend are visiting next weekend. The giggly duo who stay up to four in the morning. Hello eviction!

::Loves kitties in bathtubs::

msbelle, my friend who also has a son from the same place as Mac also had the "baby pictures family tree" school project this year, and also had to write the note to the teacher. She was just ranting about it a few weeks ago.

I definitely remember a baby picture project, from 5th grade - because the teacher brought in hers and it was on black and white! But divorce was fairly normal in my school; I was the only one of my close friends with divorced parents in the early 80s, but it wasn't considered freakish. We'd all seen the made for tv movies.

Seriously. Are family trees that crucial to elementary education?

One of my few memories from Bridge Street School (1-2 grade) was choosing and writing about one of our grandparents. I was the only kid who didn't have any. It never really bothered me that my grandparents died so long before I was born, but it did bother me that I was different from everyone else.

IOdepressingN, it looks like I got Poison Oak on my trip. It must have been about a week ago in Grand-Staircase Escalante. I just hope it's only around my ankles.

Boo poison Oak!

ION, I have a purring cat on my lap and don't know what to do. I've tried everything I can think of... petting her, scratching behind her ears, rubbing her tummy, but she won't leave....

From a teacher perspective, family and self based projects are really good at 1)Helping to teach context (i.e.-that there are people and things that came before) and 2)Helping to teach diversity (i.e.-that different people have different experiences). Relating things back to students' own lives is one of the easiest ways to make things compelling for them

I will, however, join the "boo"ing of teachers who are not open to coping reasonably with said diversity.

ION, I have a purring cat on my lap and don't know what to do. I've tried everything I can think of... petting her, scratching behind her ears, rubbing her tummy, but she won't leave....

Stand up?

2)Helping to teach diversity (i.e.-that different people have different experiences).

That does seem like the key missing piece in some of these stories.

I must say I really try to notice this in our textbooks and make things more inclusive. But it's not always easy.

OK, kitty just ran to the door to investigate doggie-like sounds coming from the hall....

Ooh! I just saw something on the Daily Show that made me think maybe my Work Nemesis will lose her job! t /oblique

And I realize it's terrible to hope for that for anyone, but she's just so incompetent, she should have been fired for cause years ago.