The District 211 Gifted Expo is tonight! My son made a working replica of a Ballista, a war weapon made by the Greeks. The theme of the expo? It Takes A Village.
I suppose Chris will be defending the village? I would say "a funny story" goes along with this subject but I don't think at this stage of the game anyone is laughing.
Son dropped the ball during the research phase of this--a culmination of two year's learning with the last half of this school year supposedly dedicated to a project worthy of "the village."
I think it's fair to say that son got overwhelmed and due to pride, immaturity, and/or lack of common sense, he failed to tell us.
He left that up to his teacher, a very well-regarded chap who has been running the Critical Thinking program at Fremd High School since it's inception about 20 years ago (he retires this year). Chris's teacher called me about 3 weeks ago with the bad news that to him, Chris had "given up" on the project. I asked what to do and teacher advised conjuring a miracle or dropping the class.
When I talked to son I gave him the options and surprising me, he chose to attempt a miracle. So, for the past three weeks every spare minute has been dedicated to this project with completion just happening 10 minutes before he needed to leave to get to the event 2 hours before it commences, during which all the kids will check out each other's projects and have a meal together.
Spouse, in the construction of the Ballista, must have "run to" Home Depot at least two dozen times. Not exaggerating. This was a huge, hairy deal. It was also very costly though spouse gets to keep lots of shiny new tools.
I had nothing to do with the making of the weapon except for the mom thing. I had a lot more input into teaching Chris some Photoshop tricks for the photos he took of his creation, stage by stage.
He was quite surprised at the length of time one can pour into such endeavors.
Getting the Ballista to function correctly was one thing but the presentation board was a large component as well. Oh yeah. This time I thoroughly vetted the clothes he was to wear. His brother even gave him a shirt that is quite styish. :)
On none of it did his dad or I overtly try to manipulate the project. It is after all, his.
Son and spouse just went ripping out of here so I haven't even seen the finished presentation board. I'll see it at the show for which I now must go get ready and get myself suburban mom-looking.
Cheers!
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