Kindergarten kompetition

So.

Time passes. D- is five now, no longer the toddler, and no longer in Parc Ex. New neighbourhood, older boy.

Older boy started school in September. Kindergarten. This week he came home with his first homework assignment. The teacher asked that each child learn one or two (not more, her note insisted) bits of information about spiders. If the child felt so inclined he could draw a picture.

I only noticed D-'s homework assignment as we were getting ready to leave the house on our way to school.

Right, I said, Let's get out the dictionary. I read the entry under 'spider' out loud to D- and then asked him if he wanted to make a drawing, he said no. Off we go, I said, heading for the door.

Noooo, D- said. It's not enough information, he said. What about pictures? He was starting to get worked up. He was close to tears.

What's the story? Well, it seems other little children had arrived with a whole plethora of information about spiders, with pictures printed from the internet, with glossy close-ups of arachnids hairy and wide-eyed.

And then it hit me, the overzealousness of over-involved competitive parents makes everyone have to work that much harder.

When I complained to a colleague at work, she told me of how when her daughter was in grade one and had to make a presentation, a classmate came with her own computer and made a power point presentation. Grade one!

In the end, D- made a drawing of a spider and a web. I wrote out a few facts about spiders (more than two but less than five). But I insisted that if one child said five or six things about spiders well, there wouldn't be anything left for the other children to say.

Lord help me.