We Don't Need No Education

Every day when we pick Jackson up from daycare, his folder is full of all kinds of drawings, worksheets, and projects for us to take home. I recently commented to Matt that his art seems to be getting worse and worse, and then we realized that they are probably actually letting him do more and more himself. Seriously, we have received art projects in which we really couldn't discern what part a two year old possibly could have contributed. The intricate cutting? The carefully drawn labels? The perfect glue job? Anyway, we go quite a surprise this Monday when we went to Jackson's folder and found a blank worksheet entitled "Homework". Not only a blank worksheet entitled "Homework", but one involving matching numbers of items that Jackson couldn't possibly be expected to do. We both chuckled over his first homework assignment and I dropped the "Homework" in the recycling bin along with the rest of his "art" and the junk mail.

But the laugh was on us the next day when we came to pick Jackson up. "Did Jackson do his homework?" his teacher asked. At first I panicked. I pasted a big smile on my face and looked at Jackson, "Jackson did you do your homework, honey?" Then I realized how incredibly mean and ridiculous it was for me to blame my parenting failure on Jackson; it sort of felt like telling the teacher that your dog ate your homework. So I confessed, "Um...I guess we didn't get to it last night. We'll do it tonight for sure." I may as well have worn a t-shirt that said, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT MY CHILD'S EDUCATION." I rushed home and dug the wretched worksheet out of the recycling bin. Over dinner, Matt and I tried to explain squirrel math (certainly 3 or even 4 year old work, right?) while Jackson yelled, "I don wan do HOMEWORK!!."

The next day, the three of us proudly turned in Jackson's homework. Matt and I chuckled about the whole thing again, and hoped that was the end of 2 year old homework. That afternoon, we found this waiting for us in Jackson's box:

I don't know what's funnier: the fact that they graded an assignment that he clearly never could have done on his own, or that fact that he got 100/100 as his grade.