Sam's School Work

Day 106: Sam's School Work

My COC village. Peaceful, innit?

Sam is out of the house for two weeks visiting his grandma in Florida. I'm trying to stay in touch with him by playing his favorite game, Clash of Clans. I am a member of his clan. I never actually go to battle except when Sam starts a clan war and it's my duty to take one for the team. Even though my warriors are really just binary code, I hate that they all get killed every time I go to battle. I'm totally incompetent as a warrior; the only time "I" win is when Sam is physically sitting next to me to coach me through it; sometimes he has to take the helm (ie, grab my iPad and finish playing for me). However, as in life, Clash of Clans awards the Chief who waits patiently for the gold mines and elixir drills to accumulate wealth, then spends wisely on infrastructure. I'm ranked third in our clan.

I took Sam's absence as an opportunity to clean out his cubby, which is really just square in our living room IKEA bookshelf. The cubby was filled with reams of notes, handouts, tests, study guides, used spiral notebooks, drafts of essays, Spanish language vocabulary sheets, English language vocabulary sheets, and science lab results. Our 50-gallon recycling bin is over half full with a single year's worth of school work. 

Here it is, empty binders and new
spiral notebooks all ready for next year

I personally remember very little of what I learned in high school, so I doubt whether this weight of busy work has actually added much to Sam's store of knowledge. There are over a million words in the English language, with a new word being invented every couple hours. The average high school educated English-speaking person knows about 45,000 words (60,000 including proper nouns). So what's the point of learning 15 words a week for an English vocab test? 

I suspect that the real point of a high school education - maybe even a college education - is to prove that a person can follow instructions and meet deadlines. Neither of my kids certainly seems to be learning much critical thinking and teamwork at school.

I did find some valuable things in the cubby: a Spanish textbook and a novel from his English class, both property of the Ann Arbor Public School system. If he does not return these books before June of 2016, he will not be permitted to graduate. I've therefore put them in a prominent place, with a note telling him to return the books the minute he gets back from Florida.