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?