I hope dad got an A.

If I were the teacher, I'd give it an F.

"How much of the work did you do?"

"I just watched."

"Tell your dad to take this project to his teacher. I want to see something YOU made."

What the fuck's next? Some rich parent will just hire a model maker to do the project? How's a normal kid supposed to keep up?

Just a B+.

@8:15
He let a child handle lead without gloves.

We made viking longboats when I was a kid. My mum and I got well into it, we built a proper keel and ribs and then layered strips of card for the hull. She did quite a bit of the fiddly construction, but we did the research and planning together and I was thrilled to be making something totally awesome.

There is obviously value in getting kids to go away and create something independently, but real life projects are usually collaborative, even if reading any CV makes it seem otherwise. In the end it was a different (obviously inferior ) boat that "won", but you better believe that if my hypothetical kids ever have to build a boat that I am going to pass on what my mum passed on to me.

Opposite experience: in 4th grade me and a partner were suppose to make a model church (catholic school). I had made stained glass windows with that fake stained glass paint - arts and crafts stuff, we had made brick walls out of clay on wood...for a couple of 10 year olds it was pretty impressive. Then my partner's rather insisted we finish it at his house. His father scrapped everything we'd done and made it himself in his wood shop, letting us do nothing. Thing is, he had a wood shop but he sucked. Made it out of fake wood paneling and it didn't even make sense. It was just a crappy looking box that in no way resembled a building. I hated that thing. His need to take over stole the creativity from children.

You might think what your kid makes will be better for your help and they'll be happier because of it. But what you end up with will never be theirs. Hope you're really proud of your grade school project.

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