Constitutional Education, Nerdily

Laney will finish her 10th year in CPS schools this year.  In that time, almost all of her teachers have been superlative. You'd never believe that listening to the folks who run our school system; you know, these guys:

Darth Rauner, Rahm and Forrest Claypool

They'd have us believe that CPS teachers are overpaid, incompetent jerkwads.  But what do they know? They don't send their own kids to CPS.  I'm pretty sure their kids go to The Durmstrang Institute and think that CPS schools are for suckers and taxpayers and, you know, poor people (ewwwwwww).

But our experience with CPS has been great. There was only the one time she had a teacher that might not have been great.  But we could be wrong because it came at a time when Laney was switching schools anyway, thus ending a seven year experiment with a commute so arduous the inside of my car began had begun to feel like Rura Penthe.

This means we came to Middle School blithe in our confidence that Laney would always enjoy a superlative educational experience.

Laney came home recently with a 63 page packet, consisting of alternating pages between dry text lessons about the Constitution and questions about what they'd just read about The Constitution.  I cannot fathom a more boring way to learn about The Constitution. And we really need our kids to learn about our primary governing document, since a solid half of us seem to believe that this what it says:

It took Laney longer to complete it than it took George RR Martin to finish The Winds of Winter (he sent me an advance copy: Arya's dead now) and she did not end up filled with a passion for Constitutional study.  Rather, her relationship with the United States Constitution can be best summed up thusly:

Get it?  I'm saying she'd like to shoot the Constitution on account of how boring it is.  I was trying to squeeze a Star Wars reference in here too. I know.  It's a strained metaphor.  But you get to see Dreamy Han Solo.  That makes everyone happy right?

It's only fair to acknowledge that I'm only really getting one side of this.  I also know that teaching is goddamn hard job for which people are woefully under-compensated whilst forced to deal with pain-in-the-ass parents and these guys who are doing their damnedest to make sure their compensation is even worse:

And it's also a valuable lesson for kids to learn that sometimes things are hard and sometimes you'll have to work with people with whom your style doesn't jibe.  

Still, I wish her reaction to learning about The Constitution was like this:

That said, her dad is a huge history nerd.  I'll put him on it.    

This is a good plan.  I'm done with complaining now.  Bye!