Eureka! Things A Dead Mathmatician Taught Me

My oldest son had a big biography project due today.  Last week The Athlete and I were on our first real child-free vacation in several years (we went with The Arch Mother and The Brick - this will be a post for another day - See next week's two part post titled "WHY IS THE TV SO LOUD/The damn TV isn't working again"). When we got back, my oldest hadn't made much progress besides reading and some very basic note taking about the subject of his report.

Now, most of the boys pick people like George Washington, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King Jr.. On the note taking worksheet the teacher handed out, she asked, "Why is your subject famous?"

My son's response:  "He's not. No parents really even know who he is."

He picked Archimedes. Of course he did. I'm sure YOU know all about Archimedes.  But in our life, so far only a 22 year old, robotics aficionado knew anything about him.  He was a Greek mathematician and inventor from the pre-Christ era.   There are not as many children's biography's about non-saint, pre-Christ scientists as you might imagine. Thank God that he loves to read and is willing to delve into the non-picture book biographies.

The early childhood homework project should be a college course in psychology - actually it should be a master's program. I am a pretty hands off parent.  I give the older kids a pretty long leash. BUT I found myself fighting back some pretty strong, strange parental urges this weekend while he was working on the project.  It involved a note taking packet, a poster board, a costume and a two page paper. He is an independent kid; he's creative and likes to be inventive. He also has a clear vision of how he likes to do things. He had also read everything he could find about the guy so he felt pretty comfortable with the topic.

He hand wrote the paper on non-lined paper in pencil.

"When you're turning in a big project like this, I think being neat and organized is important. You should get lined paper and a pen."

A pen?  Really?  I told my 9 year old, who is just learning cursive, that he should write his report in PEN? It was at this point that I realized I was offering useless advice and that instead of helping it was disheartening. I'm picturing PowerPoint slideshows when that's not the appropriate picture at all.

He told me that it could be typed. "That would be very professional if you did that!"

"Mom, will you just type it for me?" 

Pause. He'd been working on it for two hours while listening to his sibling play unencumbered by dead mathematicians in the other room.

"Honey, I want to help, but I can't, that's part of the experience of working on a big project.  If you want it to be typed, you need to do it yourself." 

Did I want to type it? Yes.  It would have taken me three minutes (I'm a writer, you know).

But did I type it? No.

The poster board was mostly done but there were a few misspellings and in general, if I'm honest with you, it just didn't really do much for me. I'm thinking about all the other parents who are probably helping cut and paste, who are stenciling and buying glitter.

So what? 

Who's project is it? 

Ummm. Well, I faltered. I used the misspellings to step in and show him the errors and then suggested maybe he slow down and look at the board. I knew he wanted to be done with it and go find a book and curl up in front of the fireplace.

"What is your plan?" I ask.

"Do you want it to tell a story or do you want it to be illustrations from your report?"  He looks down on his project.

 "It's important that the words are big enough to read from a distance.  Pencil is hard to read - its not dark enough." 

After the last question, I could see the breath sort of sink out of his chest. I stopped talking and thought to myself What is MY plan here? Do I want him to be proud of his own work?  Can I help without making it about me ?

"Why don't you take a break.  You've got time to finish it. And you really are almost done."

So yesterday when he got home from school he went right to work on it. He typed the whole thing himself.  I helped him with the formatting. He redid the poster board and set out to work on his costume.

My neighbor, who is also one of my best friends and a more hands on parent than I am, called when she got home from work.  I had asked her earlier if she had a beard that he could borrow and I told her about the project. She knows me well. She knows that he's going to be on his own for getting the costume together.  This idea proceeds to slowly kill her all day.  She has come home to Google Archimedes and see what he's up against. She calls me:

"He can't just wear a robe."

At that very moment I was holding a child size robe in my hand. In all fairness, I was putting it away because he found something else, but still, I was holding a robe.

"I swear, he's got this.  It's going to be good.  We found a black cape and some fur kind of thing. He's all set. Very excited. I'm going to grab the Santa wig from my folks house and he's going to use that."

So finally at about 7:30 last night, he emerged from my office in full, hysterical costume, poster board and two page typed report. The report is less reporty and more narrative.  It beings "I want to tell you a story..." His chest inflated with the pride of a job well done and the smile wide because he had a chance to have fun learning. I could have VERY easily ruined that chance.

Archimedes reminded me to reflect on one of the eternal questions of parenting:

Does a project for third graders need to have an animated PowerPoint? 

Of course not.

We all have lessons to be learned - parent and child.

• Honor your child's intelligence and their style.
• Help them to be their age appropriate best.
• And then just get out of their freaking way.