Proof positive that I would not make a good teacher...
Rowan has a project for school, where he has to give a presentation to his class about Berlin. They all had to choose a city on Monday, and for some reason that's the city he decided on despite having no clue where it was or anything else about it. When he told me about it on Tuesday morning, I asked why he hadn't chosen Seattle instead, since I know tons about that place and could help him with it. But apparently it was too late to change his mind :-/
I took him to the library yesterday afternoon to find some books about the place so that we could make a start. I have my final assignment deadline just a week or two after this report is due, so I need him to be as far ahead as possible before I have to start focusing on my own work. We found a couple of good books on Germany in the children's level, then grabbed some tourist guides from the main library before finding a table to sit down at and work through the list of questions we'd made up Thursday night.
Unfortunately, Rowan just wouldn't get his head in the game and make notes on the answers we found. While I know I'm going to end up doing all the work on this assignment - which is to be on Powerpoint - I'm trying to encourage him to find, and note down, the information himself so that he knows what he'll be talking about. I don't know if there's going to be any form of Q&A afterwards - I very much doubt it - but I'm sure his teacher will know if he's just reciting what I've told him to say... :-p
I had to drag him out of the library after about half an hour, 'cause our whispered exchanges were getting a little too heated and there were people there genuinely trying to study for exams. We ended up sitting in a stupid, overpriced café in St David's new 'Eastside' food section till closing time while we battled to get some notes down.
I said many, many times that I'd had enough and was about ready to take him home, but he really wanted to go see the Kenyan Boy's Choir perform in St David's Hall that night. They'd come into the office Friday afternoon for a press thingy with our choir (we pretended to have a 'sing off', it was awesome! *grins*), and I'd told him all about them. I was reluctant, cause it was quite a late show and even the cheap seats were a tad on the expensive side, but we'd had to actually ask the box office staff how much they were *grumble grumble* and that only served to make him even more determined to go.
We did eventually get some work done, despite many tears and harsh words, and went to see the show. We both thought they were very good, though Rowan fell asleep towards the end and missed an opportunity to get up and dance on stage with them! *laughs* We were in the third row, despite having gotten the cheap seats, so we had a pretty good view. I'm not sure if it was just because I'd seen them in a meeting room at work the day before, but I thought the acoustics were terrible - there wasn't much in the way of a microphone setup, so the general sound was somewhat uneven and the soloists were very quiet. I know from experience how bloody hard it is to hear yourself on that stage, but I'd thought that was because the acoustics were set up to the audience's benefit rather than the performer's. :-/ Ah well - it was still a good night.
Today we're going to be searching the web for pictures to use in the powerpoint presentation. Should be far less stressful than yesterday....
I took him to the library yesterday afternoon to find some books about the place so that we could make a start. I have my final assignment deadline just a week or two after this report is due, so I need him to be as far ahead as possible before I have to start focusing on my own work. We found a couple of good books on Germany in the children's level, then grabbed some tourist guides from the main library before finding a table to sit down at and work through the list of questions we'd made up Thursday night.
Unfortunately, Rowan just wouldn't get his head in the game and make notes on the answers we found. While I know I'm going to end up doing all the work on this assignment - which is to be on Powerpoint - I'm trying to encourage him to find, and note down, the information himself so that he knows what he'll be talking about. I don't know if there's going to be any form of Q&A afterwards - I very much doubt it - but I'm sure his teacher will know if he's just reciting what I've told him to say... :-p
I had to drag him out of the library after about half an hour, 'cause our whispered exchanges were getting a little too heated and there were people there genuinely trying to study for exams. We ended up sitting in a stupid, overpriced café in St David's new 'Eastside' food section till closing time while we battled to get some notes down.
I said many, many times that I'd had enough and was about ready to take him home, but he really wanted to go see the Kenyan Boy's Choir perform in St David's Hall that night. They'd come into the office Friday afternoon for a press thingy with our choir (we pretended to have a 'sing off', it was awesome! *grins*), and I'd told him all about them. I was reluctant, cause it was quite a late show and even the cheap seats were a tad on the expensive side, but we'd had to actually ask the box office staff how much they were *grumble grumble* and that only served to make him even more determined to go.
We did eventually get some work done, despite many tears and harsh words, and went to see the show. We both thought they were very good, though Rowan fell asleep towards the end and missed an opportunity to get up and dance on stage with them! *laughs* We were in the third row, despite having gotten the cheap seats, so we had a pretty good view. I'm not sure if it was just because I'd seen them in a meeting room at work the day before, but I thought the acoustics were terrible - there wasn't much in the way of a microphone setup, so the general sound was somewhat uneven and the soloists were very quiet. I know from experience how bloody hard it is to hear yourself on that stage, but I'd thought that was because the acoustics were set up to the audience's benefit rather than the performer's. :-/ Ah well - it was still a good night.
Today we're going to be searching the web for pictures to use in the powerpoint presentation. Should be far less stressful than yesterday....