Kids these days are a lot smarter than some people give them credit for. And my 9-year-old niece is no exception.
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My niece is a third-grader at a Baltimore County school in Maryland, and her class does journaling for homework. Recently, on a journal worksheet, an interesting question was asked. By “interesting,” I mean dumb.
“If you could be any of your classmates, who would you be and why?” was the question.
Now, why this would be asked of third-graders is beyond me. But when it comes to my niece, let’s just say she’s not your average 9-year-old:
And she definitely makes several good points.
If you’re satisfied with yourself, why in the world would you want to be anyone else? If my niece is already self-aware at 9, hopefully, by her teen years, she’ll still be that way.
More people. More problems.
I keep my circle of friends quite small. Hell, it’s not a circle. More like a tiny dot. And even then, there are times when I need a break from OPP (other people’s problems).
If you want me to do something so beyond ridiculousness, that money better be right. And I think $1 trillion is a reasonable amount.
My niece was also asked on a separate assignment what she would do if she were a singer with tons of money. First of all, a singer? Why couldn’t the question use a more relevant occupation, like scientist?
But, of course, she had the perfect answer, and I made sure the Baltimore County Public Schools and its superintendent got wind of it.
Thousands of kids in Baltimore County suffer through the summer months at school because the district is too cheap to add air conditioning to the buildings. And I’m glad she’d make that her top priority—hypothetically speaking, of course.
Kids these days aren’t naive and shouldn’t be presented with superficial questions like the ones in my niece’s homework assignments. But, hopefully, in the end it’s the teacher who’s learned a lesson.
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