First Assignment

On Tuesday I made note of my expectation that the first day of school would result in parent homework. My expectations were met.

My nephew's junior high teacher went a little bit further than the standard emergency information forms. She sent an actual honest to goodness homework assignment home for the parents of each of her students.

Write a 500 word essay about your child. The assignment was accompanied by the explanation that since the students had just advanced from elementary to junior high the teacher had no past history with the students. The parent essays would allow the teacher to quickly build a knowledge of the kids in her class.

Now I'm fairly comfortable with putting words on paper - but I can picture the horrified expressions on the faces of any number of parents. An essay? Me? You've got to be kidding!

I know exactly what my father would have done. He would have lowered his newspaper, flicked the ashes from the end of his cigarette, taken the assignment paper from my hand, mumbled incoherently but vehemently, and dropped the assignment in the waste basket.

And if I had moaned about a resulting black mark on my record, my father would have said from behind his newspaper - If your teacher thinks she's sending homework home to me, she's got another think coming.

Certainly times have changed since I was waist high to an adult, but I'm betting better than fifty percent of today's parents would view the assignment as an inexcusable incursion on their time. Hopefully I'll find out from my nephew and hopefully I'll be proven wrong.