Case in point? Sam’s class is all dressing up like their 100 year old selves. HUH? Sam does not get it. He has been told to wear a beard. More on that in a moment. Also, the kids are supposed to walk with a cane. Fuck no. Where would I get a cane to fit my 4 year old without making an inappropriate statement about some very real problems that cause kids to need physical assistance? This isn’t a sensitivity training situation. It’s the exact opposite. He can also wear glasses. Helllooooo? Scott and I both had glasses in grade school. By the end of the year Caroline is going to have them as well. Why not just suggest a hearing aid? Coz clearly that’s another thing only old people need, right?
About the only thing that he’s supposed to have that mostly old people have is gray hair, and he emphatically rejects that, with the logic that he doesn’t want to look like his grandmother. Yes, that was how he put it. (His grandmothers are both good looking. He meant he didn’t want to look old.)
The beard is the only thing he’s willing to do. Because few of the men in his life have facial hair, it doesn’t occur to him that young men grow these, too. Shh. Let’s not tell him, K? So. To keep him from feeling the outcast, and because I’m doing a lot to humor this school that has taken him on, I went out to buy him a beard. But the only beard I could find came with a gray wig that I know he’ll reject.
Not to mention, the only size available was “adult”. Scott thinks he has a workaround to make the beard fit. But the package makes this young guy look very Moses, and when Sam sees that, he’s liable to reject thew whole thing. And even if he gets over the gray wig color, it’s so scratchy, long, and heavy that he’s going to go into sensory overload as soon as it touches him. SO it’s going to be the beard alone. If that.
Sam is unlikely to wear them and I wasted twenty bucks at Party City. But I am a diligent researcher, and I felt it would be best to illustrate the point. So I sacrificed my dignity (what little remained) and put on the beard and wig for my blogging community.
On me, it’s less Moses, more Jerry Garcia with big boobs. Who knew?
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Edit: I had to give Jerry a ponytail, but Sam wore the complete ensemble. This morning, he was ALLL about rocking the age thing.
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Jessie Powell is the Jester Queen. She likes to tell you about her dog, her kids, her fiction, and her blog, but not necessarily in that order. |
That's a weird 100 day idea! What tie-in concept is that teaching? I can understand 100 carrot sticks, or m&ms, or even 100 pasta noodles to make a necklace or something. I mean, they CAN count those things. WTH are they learning from dressing up as an old person?
Exactly. I've had to pull together 100 fun collected items, 100 food items, and other stuff along those lines. I hated it all, but it was tangible – something the kids could actually use. This is just…weird.
I'm visiting from SITS…have a good one!
{Waves} Hi there! Thanks for stopping by!
LOL i have no words – the photo's are priceless!
and you should so get on Pinterest and start some snark boards of your own 😉
Oooooh snark boards….never thought of that. Is that where all these awesome blunt cards and stuff are coming from? Because I LOVE those things.
What a dumb assignment. That is really all I can say about this.
I agree. I was bad at childhood as a kid, and I'm worse at it now that I'm a parent. If I didn't NEED this kid to be at this school, I'd be a lot bitchier.
The whole 100 Days thing is just another evil way to torture parents!
Precisely so!
I do NOT understand what Sam is supposed to learn from all this. But, he looks happy in the beard and wig.
Shockingly happy. I suppose he's supposed to learn to respect age or something. This is a kid who already asks me "Dead is forever, right Mom?" I'd seriously rather he not have to contemplate this shit.
1. That's a great photo! 2. According to that definiton, I'm old. I have a walking stick, glasses, hearing aids, grey hair – am I stuffed?! I don't understand the 100 days thing but that definitely seems a little random. 🙂
See, according to that definition, several of my daughter's classmates are old. (She's 8). She has classmates who have walking aids. Who have hearing aids. Who wear glasses. About the only thing they don't have is gray hair. (And at that, I've known some pretty young people who've gone gray).
The 100 days thing irritates me anyway, and this particular incarnation makes me fell …. yeah old. 🙂
That's the first I've heard of the 100 days thing, but I have to say, looking back, I wonder how a family with two working parents could possibly find the time to pull together all the costumes and other nonsense our elementary schools seemed to expect people to do for their kids. My mother sewed a lot of costumes for me for school, but heck if I could do that for my own kid.
Around here, there's still a secret expectation that one of you will be a stay at home mom. Note I didn't say stay at home parent. In real life, stay at home Dads are frequent. In these people's imaginations, they are rare. My favorite stay at home Dad example is the ballet Daddy who can out-bun every one of the ballet Moms. And there are a lot of well balanced working Moms who are not at all the stereotype they could easily become. But the working mother is still considered something of a novelty around here. She's treated with pity and an attitude of "we all sacrifice for our families, and this is just your sacrifice for them". It's an improvement over outright horror, but yes, a long way to come before the schools all figure out that none of us have tons of time at our disposals. Even those stay at home parents!!!
That does seem a bit over the top. I had to bring in a bag of pretzels so they could have their 100 things snack. Pretty low-key. But it's a Montessori school and they tend not to do things unless the kids can fully help at home.
Yes – when mine were at Montessori, it was things like 'bring a collection of 100 items', and Caroline brought her erasers or stickers, and it was painless.
Ours did the one hundred items as well. Ugh… What a pain in the arse. LOL.. He looks cutr in the get up though so I am glad it worked out!!! http://www.autismasawhole.com/2012/01/throat-punc…
I'm thinking I need to check out throat-punch-thursda-goes-to-autism!!!! I couldn't BELIEVE that he put up with it. The teacher said he kept it on most of the morning.
A friend of mine had to send her son to school with 100 things pinned to him (most people did buttons, cotton balls, etc). She forgot till the morning of, so she had to scramble. She ended up pinning a $1 bill to his shirt. She told him to tell the teacher $1 is 100 pennies. I thought she was pretty darn clever. 🙂
100 things pinned to him? Thaaat … yeah that tops old people. And your friend is brilliant.