Hippy Mom Rant

I really love that pigeon, and I usually love those kids

I received the following e-mail from one of Steel's teachers:

subject line: "Beware-Unorthodox social studies assignment"

Hi Social Studies Parents,

I wanted to let you know about an assignment this week for Social Studies. As part of our thinking about archaeology, students will complete an assignment called "You in a Trash Bag." I will introduce it to students today, and it will be due on Monday, 10/7.

They will need to examine the contents of a trash bin at home and list, categorize, and analyze what they find. As I will tell them in class, they should alert you to the fact that they need to do this and figure out a way to do this in a "non-disaster" way. If necessary, they can just rummage through the trash as best as they can without doing a full dump. The goal of the assignment is that they model the work of an archaeologist-- looking at artifacts, categorizing them, and thinking about what they tell us about the people who discarded them. I am giving them a few days to complete this task knowing that it may take some time for a trash bin to become full enough to be helpful. 

This has tended to be an engaging activity that helps students do some of the skills we've been talking about. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks for your help!

Mr. Hecker,

Beware. You are about to experience a HIPPY MOM RANT.

Because I have just returned from visiting an elderly relative, I decided to sit with my kids this morning while they ate breakfast rather than nag them about collecting and taking out the trash. This sort of mom-slacking irritates my husband; he is the reason our kids can complete household tasks with any degree of efficiency. (They did not practice piano for the entire week I was gone, so he too can be "nag-averse” to some degree.)

Steel, my middle child, is going to wish she had emptied her trash on her own this morning, for in her bin, I found:

a ton of recyclables

several items of clothing (probably hand me downs) that still had the tags on them

a seemingly new replacement brush for a Sonicare toothbrush.  

There are going to be a lot of questions at dinner time tonight about what these artifacts say about her and our world.

1. Who sewed these item of clothing? Is their craftsmanship valued? Under what conditions do they work? Why is their work casually discarded?

2. Why were these items discarded? In what way were they deemed inferior/useless? Was it a decision based on form/fashion or function?  Was there another option to binning them? How difficult would it be to engage in that "other option?” 

(In this case it would involve a trip downstairs to deposit said items in a designated Goodwill bag.)

😡

3. Why do people throw away products that are easily recyclable? How difficult would recycling them be? (In this case, once again, it would involve a trip downstairs to a recycling bin)

4. Why the hell do some people in this society have access to $80 toothbrushes with $15 replacement brushes when there are also people starving to death?

I know “You reap what you sow” when it comes to entitled children, so I need to take responsibility here, but thank you for opening up a hopefully-productive conversation that doesn’t end in tears.

Liz

I don't think she's going to be this affectionate when she comes home tonight.