Could your 10yo do this school assignment?

[HerRoyalNotness]

I had an email to say they were missing an assignment from Monday, so I had a look at what it was. They’d been talking about and I thought they were on top of it.

They had to plan a trip overseas for three days with a budget of $20k. The information they needed to include was:

Destination
Flight and costs
Why you chose destination
Hotel and cost
Amenities at hotel
3 days of 3 meals naming a restaurant, meal choice and cost incl drinks
3 days of 3 activities per day naming activity, cost per person and total
Total cost overall.

It’s for maths.

YABU - yes my 10yo could complete that
YANBU - no, they’d need a lot of help/guidance.

I've worked with plenty of blokes who couldn't organise an overseas business trip themselves. I would think that would send them over the edge!!!

My (younger) grandkids routinely google for more information , youtube demonstrations of "how to XYZ" etc. They'd easily work their way through that.

DD is 10 and had a similar assignment, completed it fine. Had one or two questions along the way but done the huge majority herself x

an internet savvy, spreadsheet competent 10 YO

How many of them do you know??

@BarbaraofSeville

I would have thought that finding the flights, hotels and activities, staying on budget and even picking from online menus would be the easy part for an internet savvy, spreadsheet competent 10 YO.

The challenging part would be what you ended up with. Would you trust your 10 YO to pick a hotel that you like, that is suitably located so near to the amenities and restaurants, and would they also be to your taste? That's what I would be most concerned about and I'm not that fussy.

My kids are 16 and 19 now but aged 10 they were not internet savvy. They were allowed on specific, child friendly websites for limited time each day. They spent most of their free time dancing (dd) and playing football (ds)

I think anything that involves doing a bit of research is good. The teacher is not expecting it to be perfect! However a ten year old can get their teeth into it, somewhat out of the ordinary.

@BabyofMine

I don’t know if it’s reasonable, but I think it’s a pretty fucking insensitive assignment when children will likely have no holiday to plan for a very long time.

DD2 would have loved it for exactly that reason. She could let her imagination run riot. I doubt many would be spending 20k either.

In exactly the same way dh plans building different computers, working out the cost and processing powers and dreaming about the perfect computer, knowing that we don't need to get one.

@BertieBotts

an internet savvy, spreadsheet competent 10 YO

How many of them do you know??

Plenty are nowadays, they all know how to look things up.

I just asked my eight year old, mostly to see where he would go. He interpreted it as an opportunity to take the family on a road trip around the homes of Youtubers he likes, who are mostly teenagers who play a lot of Minecraft in their bedrooms, and appear to live in suburbs in Texas and Utah. Hurray for $20k.

He's now googling car hire in Texas.

My next door neigbour has a 10 year old (and she's a teacher). Her dd is supervised to log onto Google Classroom each day. She is able to use basic word processing programmes and specific educational software and she is allowed on chid friendly websites to play games etc occasionally. So its not like its changed a huge amount.

Don't they learn all that in school now?

I don't have DC myself, but when DM got her first laptop in her 50s, it was 8 YO nephew who answered all her questions and showed her how to do everything she needed to on it. Computers appear to be integral in school these days as well as for entertainment purposes, so I assumed that they just used all aspects of them as part of that.

Mine could have done it, and would have absolutely loved it!

For those saying the task should have been made more boring realistic, I think it's a great idea to make it more fun and 'exotic'. Life's dull enough for our kids right now. Why make the task about food shopping when it can be about swimming pools and fancy restaurants?!

BabyofMine

I don’t know if it’s reasonable, but I think it’s a pretty fucking insensitive assignment when children will likely have no holiday to plan for a very long time.
.......
That's ridiculous! It isn't children who are resentful about not going away on holiday, it's their parents. They are happy enjoying their own surroundings - which is what they do the majority of the time - especially when the weather improves.

An assignment like this one appeals to imagination, it's a challenge and fun.

20K for THREE DAYS???

Private jets are not cheap.

I think it's a great task. Makes maths fun and practical, and a good way of getting them to improve their IT skills too.

Those posters who are unhappy with the task - what sort of maths would you like teachers to set? Rote learning? Endless practices of the same thing over and over gain? Abacus practice?

[quote HerRoyalNotness]@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants

Yes my son had written a hotel name and when I asked where it was he didn’t know. He just knew he wanted to go to Germany. It was in Berlin. At least there are plenty of activities to do. Speaking of which,

What would you recommend for a child interested in the war to visit? I have (ahem he has) brandenburg gate and tiergarten so far. Will add checkpoint Charlie museum too[/quote]
I took my dd to Berlin a few years ago linked to her history in school. We went to sachsenhausen concentration camp. www.visitberlin.de/en/gedenkstatte-sachsenhausen
She still talks about it now. We had a private tour www.viveberlintours.com/en/tour/sachsenhausen-concentration-camp-berlin-tour/.

Mine could have, but they have travelled a lot so they could have used that experience. I think a lot of kids wouldn’t know where to start, especially at that ridiculous budget.

There are all sorts of ways to make maths relevant to the real world.

Which works out better, a free phone and £39 a month for 2 years, or pay £499 for the phone and £15 a month for a sim only contract?

Which airline is cheapest when you've taken the cost of the flights, allocated seats and luggage into account?

How much do you have to spend in Tesco to get enough clubcard points for a free pass to Alton Towers and would it be cheaper to do your shopping in Aldi instead and buy your own Alton Towers pass if Aldi is 20% cheaper and you spend £80 a week in Tesco.

How much in interest would it cost to pay off your credit card if you only made the minimum payment on a card that charged 20% interest.

Etc etc.

@fairlygoodmother

Mine could have, but they have travelled a lot so they could have used that experience. I think a lot of kids wouldn’t know where to start, especially at that ridiculous budget.

Surely it's easier given a ridiculous budget? They won't have to spend ages filtering results to fit a small budget.

It's a maths project, so only the numbers matter. not whether or not it's good value!

It's probable that German schools are a bit less technological than UK ones, but IME 10yos are absolutely rubbish at looking stuff up on google, it's quite a specific skill. TBH when DS1 started secondary (they start at 10 here) he was one of the more technologically able in his class, he could do things like save and retrieve a document, copy and paste, which the others didn't know how to do, but he defo struggles to google things - he will have no sense of what's a result and what's an ad, he places way too much store in the summary answer google tries to give, and he won't know how to navigate a site once he gets there, even if it seems very obvious to me. He's slowly getting there now aged 12 but that's with me helping and showing him what to do as well as swapping tips with his friends etc. He rarely uses the web browser except to access Youtube or the downloads page for a game.

Spreadsheets I don't think they have done at school at all yet, he is 12 now. I use them at home but he doesn't really ask to make his own or anything. They have used Word, Publisher and Powerpoint.

It's a great assignment IMO, but it defo needs guidance, and is more of an IT task than a maths one - for maths it would make more sense for the teacher to have a stash of travel brochures or something that they could use or even just some mocked-up options to choose between.

I would also guess they have made the budget outlandish so that it will be a "fantasy" type holiday for (almost) everyone, rather than something some of the class can relate to and some of them not.

Seems a weird scenario for a Maths based exercise that favours very wealthy families. Is it a private fee paying school?

I doubt my DS would tackle that especially well. He’s never travelled abroad other than to visit family so wouldn’t have a clue about booking flights, hotels costs or what amenities the hotels might offer. We rarely eat out in restaurants as it’s too expensive (I don’t think we’ve ever taken DS to a restaurant?).

Those posters who are unhappy with the task - what sort of maths would you like teachers to set? Rote learning? Endless practices of the same thing over and over gain?

Depends on the child. I would have hated this type of creative stuff but I loved Maths and was good at it. Give me loads of equations to solve any day!

Very few actual 10 year olds could do this unaided.

On MN, the vast majority of 10 year olds could do this and then solve a couple of quadratic equations before breakfast.

And a mother standing over them and telling them the next step, followed by checking the work carefully would not be considered guidance or help, merely looking over.

@Cluas

I just asked my eight year old, mostly to see where he would go. He interpreted it as an opportunity to take the family on a road trip around the homes of Youtubers he likes, who are mostly teenagers who play a lot of Minecraft in their bedrooms, and appear to live in suburbs in Texas and Utah. Hurray for $20k.

He's now googling car hire in Texas.

😂. We happen to live in Texas so pop in for a cuppa.