to think being allowed to choose matt cardle as your famous person for homework project a cop out?

[Sops]

This week dd's year 2 homework was to do a fact file on a famous person of your choice.
Teacher's instructions were to choose anyone they liked "a historical figure, a singer, sportsperson or film star"
She wanted to do choose a woman, so i gave out a quick list of famous women off the top of my head: the queen, Joan of Arc, Marie Curie, Boudicca, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria. Dd says "oh, Mrs X told us about Queen Victoria she married David Beckham". I laughed my head off at this! We decided to do the real Queen Victoria instead.

However, when she got back yesterday after sharing homework with the class she mentioned that one of the children had chosen Matt Cardle as their famous person and after re-reading the instructions I thought they were really steered towards "celebrities" rather than my interpretation of a truly famous person ie. someone that is well known for the significant effect/influence they have had on society.

The difference being that although most celebrities in Heat/OK/Hello are 'famous' now- I bet not many people will still remember Matt Cardle in 100 years time! (Nothing against Matt Cardle, I'm sure he's a lovely guy and maybe in the future he'll discover a cure for cancer, bring peace to the middle east and stop global warming)

Homework also suggested they could do their own poster using pictures of as many famous people as they can find and making a collage- does this mean just cutting up Heat Magazine?

Am i being precious (and middle class) for wondering if school is encouraging children to buy into this shallow celebrity culture?

What's wrong with choosing him? He fought to be where he is today, a typical working class man made good.

Jeez you sound like a snob.

I suppose the school would argue that work will be better if it is self motivated and even non-personalities can develop good research and writing skills.

I agree though and would hate to think that children are basing fame and worth on vacuous crap.

sorry writing about non-personalities, is what I meant.

I think there needs to be some kind of 20-year acid test for "celebrities". If they last two years (and have a clearly defined talent - so not you, Jordan or Abby Clancy) you may call them one. After all, who remembers Lucie Jones?

Sorry that should say 2-year!!

If the child is interested in X-Factor, and that motivates them to do their homework, then surely that is the main point? They will still be using the same skills to make their fact file as someone who is writing aboutthe queen, Joan of Arc, Marie Curie, Boudicca, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria et al.

Plus, I assume your dd was allowed to choose one of your choices, and not forced to write about Lady GaGa, so where's the problem?

Is Matt Cardle actually interesting though?
I know he can sing, he used to be a painter and decorator and he's from Colchester... have I missed out the interesting bits?

Isn't it a teacher's job to get children interested in things they otherwise might not be exposed to: history, science, geography etc etc...?

He's famous? so not really? You're probably upset because it will be more work for you when you do the HW as there won't be as much info on WIKI about him!

He's not from Colchester btw, don't get that wrong on your kids HW!

YANBU - surely it's part of the school's job to broaden children's horizons beyond celebrity culture? If they want modern interesting/inspirational characters there are plenty - Nelson Mandela, Rebecca Atkinson, Brian Cox to pick just 3 wildly different examples off the top of my head.

PS sorry, but can't be bothered to Google - who is Matt Cardle?

It would annoy me a bit, as I feel very strongly against the whole five minutes of fame culture.

But I agree that it still encourages research skills.

In fact, what I would do (in fact I may file it away for future use as I'm hoping to be a teacher) is ask them to research one current celebrity and one historical figure (possibly over two homeworks) - they would then talk about the differences between them - such as 'will we remember Matt in the same way we remember Florence nightingale? Which one made a better contribution to society and why? (no right or wrong answer really - you could argue that Matt contributes by making people happy by singing (hahaha)

It would have to be done fairly simply, but that could lead to quite a valuable discussion about celebrity culture IMO - what do you think? :)

whatdo....Matt Cardle won a singing competition once.

I've not got anything against Matt Cardle btw in fact, I quite fancy him . Maybe fabbychic does too?

I didn't make dd do Queen victoria, she just said she couldn't think of anyone so that list was just off the top of my head.

When she mixed up queen vic and vic beckham, I explained who queen victoria was and she said that she would pick her. She loves princesses and queens in fairytales so is just up her street.

I wouldn't say he's not interesting, he fought a battle with a rare caner as a child. He worked hard to get onto and wn the X-factor. Thats fairly interesting.

It's personal opinion, what I may find interesting about a parson, someone else may not. If it encouraging children to research and write and think then it can't all be bad.

Cancer

Your misprint made me :) He didn't have to fight a battle with a rare caner, until he came up against Cher Lloyd.

My first thought was Matt who? Kind of answers the is he famous bit. Or maybe I just live in a cultural void ?

so WDYT of my other homework idea? Opinions please

:o

freudianslip very good idea.

Some people are famous for being famous, and we could learn about them but what's the point of learning about someone who is famous for being famous (eg. Abby Clancy, Jordan, Paris Hilton) when you could learn about Nelson Mandela. Rubyrubyruby, surely it is more valuable to learn about Nelson Mandela rather than Matt Cardle- doesn't his story teach children more about the world and is therefore more 'important'

The celebrity culture really disturbs and depresses me and I think we may be in danger of encouraging children to think they're only goal in life should be to be rich and famous.

On the other hand all FAME has very little to do with reality.

Chubby Clive James said "Leave fame to those who really need it." He did at one time;but its not bad advice.

I suppose the tabloids help to ruin any sort of fame these days.

On early schooling. Let the child make the choice.