Parents: Volume 4

My French 4 students do a project wherein they must present a famous person from French History to the class. They must "be" the person, which includes dressing up. I have actually been quite impressed with some of their costumes. Here's a sampling from last year:

Emile Zola

Paper facial hair was a popular look last year!

Napoleon Bonaparte

Look at how embarrassed and uncomfortable she is! Taking their picture when they're in costume is so rewarding.

Guillaume le Conquérant (William the Conqueror)

That would be dyed shaving cream as his beard, in case you were wondering. He dripped a lot during his presentation.

Cardinal Richelieu

I love this kid! He borrowed all the clothing from the priest at his church!

I would just like to point out the homemade nature of most of these costumes. Even the fancy cardinal didn't pay any money to dress up.

Anyway, one of my students, Christophe, was not the most diligent of students. He had suffered a brain injury some years previous which affected his concentration but the kid was not really about effort. He asked me in class if, instead of dressing up as the person, he could draw what the person looked like on a poster. I immediately said no, as that would open up a whole can of worms of kids not wanting to dress up. He acted annoyed but did not pursue it any further.

One morning a few days later, I arrived at school to see a woman waiting outside my classroom. Christophe's mother. Because right before school is just the perfect time to discuss something with your child's teacher. She proceeded to tell me how I was not accommodating Christophe's disabilities with the project (it's always good to attack right away and assume the teacher doesn't want to help your child. It has nothing to do with the fact that she has 150 students to keep track of). We cleared that up fairly easily but then the subject of the costume came up. She showed me the "poster" that he had mentioned:

While I am 99.99999% certain that he did not make that himself (or even helped), it is a perfectly acceptable alternative to actually dressing up. Before I could tell her that I had no problem with the poster, she says....

We're trying to save for Chris to go to college, we can't afford to pay for a Napoleon costume."

WHAT? What kind of a costume would you have to get that would make a dent in the college fund? Why would you think I would require that of my students? Do you have no creativity whatsoever? And in case you were wondering, one of my students rented a king costume to be Louis XIV. Cost? $15. Maybe she thought she had to buy a uniform actually worn by Napoleon himself. I could see how that could get pricey. I let her know that not only did I not expect my students to choose between college or their French History project but if her son had bothered to explain what his "poster" was in class, it would have saved her a 7:00am trip to school to chew me out.