”Group Project” is a dirty word in our house. Yet the teachers in our schools feel the need to mandate these types of projects in the classrooms. I am sure that their intentions are good and their desire is for the students to learn to work together towards a common goal and experience success when they enter the job force in ten years.  That may be how it plays out in their minds, but in reality it is a living nightmare for parents and an emotional roller coaster for the whole family

Just recently my senior daughter had a huge grade-shaping, entrepreneurial group project. She and the two girls paired up with her, were to design an item that would compete in the marketplace of the high school against fifty other “ideas” by fellow students. The assignment was to make a business plan, portfolio, slide presentation, outline the details and market and sell it.  As expected, one girl was rarely available, and the other didn’t return messages for days. After coughing-up close to one hundred and fifty dollars they all received an A-.  Granted the bulk of the work, worry, and effort pretty much was handled by only one of them. Can you guess who? 

I can tell you sob stories of past assignments we have survived over the years. I often wondered if there was a support group I could have joined early on.

“Honors Chem-Phys” was another class where projects of immense proportions had to be constructed.  The most memorable assignment was when the boys had to build a trebuchet, (catapult).  Their grade depended on how far the machine could launch a golf ball.  While I have no brain matter capable of calculating numeric equations of any kind, I can build just about anything. Luckily an area near our home was under construction and we could score free supplies, a dumpster dive was in order. This netted most of the necessary materials and kept costs to a minimum. My keen mind had already come up with a design that “hypothetically speaking” should work.

Our neighbors’ son had the same project to accomplish. They spent hours searching the internet and comparing designs. They drew up complex plans and purchased the finest wood and necessary hardware to create a weapon capable of hurling small animals miles away…in theory that is. 

When the time came to haul the projects to school and see what they could do, an amazing thing happened…my project actually worked. In the end we spent about eight bucks and launched the ball at least thirty-eight feet. Our neighbors boy on the other hand, ended up dishing out close too ninety dollars for the finest looking trebuchet known to the high school population. Unfortunately, it was mostly useful for its aesthetic value and is currently being displayed in the “museum of really good school projects” located in their attic.

Notice the word “I” is used a little too much. We are in fact, guilty of being part-time, hands-on parents who don’t want their offspring to fail…and I know we aren’t alone. You know who you are out there, you builders of the Great Wall of China out of sugar cubes. By the time we got to the fifth kid, we felt like we had already been through high school six times and never wanted to go back again.

Some school projects are truly ingenious.  Other assignments are unreasonable, and require a graduate degree to figure out. 

What is the lesson learned that I can pass onto other parents?  I don’t know really. If you let the kid do their own project they get shown up by the other over-zealous parents out there.  Maybe if we made a mutual pact of some kind like; no one helps their children beyond loving support and supplies… ever no matter what?

Well I have to go now, there’s a volcano baking in the oven that will need to get painted before tomorrow.

I’ll need at least an “A” on that if I…uh, I mean, my daughter wants to make the honor roll this semester.