It's 3:53pm on Columbus Day and my boys are copying excerpts from Oliver Twist and Call of the Wild. We are ending a regular school day.
I was lucky; they didn't realize that all the other kids in our neighborhood had the day off until just before lunch time. Joshua asked why our neighbors were outside screaming.... "hmmm....guess their home.."
He grabbed his ipod and looked at the calender. He then walked into Asher's room, where I was helping his brother work on school, and exclaimed "It's Columbus Day!"
I promptly told him "That's great, we don't celebrate that holiday at this school". He complained for a minute and went back to work.
Why don't we take the day off? Why should we? It's rather ridiculous to take an entire day of school off for Columbus.
It would be cool if schools did a day long unit around Columbus. In math they could do math problems related to his voyage (how far away was he from America!). In geography they could study the places he actually discovered. In writing they could pretend to be sailors on the ships writing to their loved ones explaining what sea life was like. In history they could study...hmmm..history!
No comments:
Post a Comment