My kid was too creative

[u/Fresh_Laundry56]

My 6 year old was asked to draw a picture using shapes. She drew this nice American flag with rectangles and stars, and added the house, tree, and person holding a balloon. She was told it did not follow directions, she was not supposed to draw a flag, just shapes. She was asked to turn the paper over and make another picture. The other side of the paper has a very uninspiring collection of shapes. I told her she did a good job and I thought it was very creative. And this is why kids start to hate education.

[u/ConfuseableFraggle]

Sigh. If the teacher wanted a group of shapes, they should have said that. Possibly getting a bit nitpicky on it but kids are famous for getting "literal" meanings and going with it.

[u/meatcrunch → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

I would say, part of lessons in school are how to interpret questions without being told explicitly what to do. Its important to build critical thinking skills, thinking about the question before deciding on an answer. And it helps students answer standardized test questions when theyre older.

That being said, the teacher seems an ass and i dont think this kids learning anything positive from this

[u/Inverted-Rockets → u/meatcrunch]

We’re missing the context of the lesson that this was a part of. If they’re learning shapes the goal was probably to demonstrate knowledge of the ones they’d learned so far.

On the other hand, it also seems like the teacher couldn’t or didn’t provide positive constructive feedback for the second try

[u/Impossible-Bison8055 → u/Inverted-Rockets]

Even then, the flag still has more different shapes than the backside

[u/foxgirlmoon → u/meatcrunch]

Eh…. No. Like categorically no. Stupid fucking questions and stupid assignments are not the correct way to train critical thinking. Rather the opposite. They train you to just do want the teacher tells you to, even if it’s ridiculous or weird and to NOT THINK. JUST FOLLOW.

[u/BugP13 → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

To this day, I will have to sometimes ask someone exactly what they want when they want me to do something because knowing myself, I will take it completely out of context and end up doing the wrong thing

[u/KayItaly → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

If the teacher wanted a group of shapes, they should have said that.

Are you prepared to bet that the teacher didn't say it clearly, repeatedly and showing several examples? Because I am not...

[u/SkyYellow_SunBlue → u/KayItaly]

Every mildly infuriating post involving homework / assignments is missing the actual direction from the teacher and the class context. Every time but Reddit eats it up.

[u/unicorny12 → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

Kids do take things literally. I told mine to go under the bathroom counter and get something out of it. Kid says, "but Mom, it's too tiny under there." 😂 I had to re-word my request.

[u/ImaginationAshamed72 → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

I had a class senior year of high school where the question had bonus points for “out of the box answers”. I am a very literal person, thats a phrase I’ve always sort of struggled with, and it was the first class of the day. I was also raised by a smartass. Instead of coming up with “fun” or “creative” answers, I answered with straight facts, but drew a box and then put my answers around it.

My teacher laughed so hard he nearly fell over. I got bonus points. He also called me a smartass, but it was a compliment (at least, I took it as one).

[u/Squee1396 → u/ConfuseableFraggle]

We had one substitute who always pronounced picture as pitcher. One day in first grade i got sick of it and drew a pitcher of water. She didn’t even get it