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One Portland middle school requires parents to get cooking for class instead of bake sales.
The arts-themed da Vinci Middle School urged parents to help out with this weekend's homework for a seventh- and eighth-grade class: making an elaborate three-dimensional edible map of Africa.
"I encourage you to get involved in this activity with your child," writes the teacher, whose name WW agreed to withhold to get a copy of the email.
The homework assignments will be eaten in class on Tuesday.
Portland Public Schools' so-called focus-option schools that specialize in a subject, including da Vinci, have of late been criticized for serving an elite population of students. Admissions policies to the schools were shifted this year to give low-income students priority, as a result.
But an onerous homework assignment—involving parents—isn't doing anything for the notion that the schools favor more privileged students.
"Remember whole wheat, cruelty-free, organic, free range ingredients that are earth friendly," the teacher instructs in the last line of the email.
Da Vinci principal Fred Locke says that last line was meant as a joke.
The tipster who leaked the teacher's email wasn't in on the Portlandia-style joke.
Other advice from the teacher in that same list: washing hands and that cookie dough is "more pliable" than cake batter for forming the continent's geographic features, including Lake Victoria and the Atlas Mountains.
Locke offered a robust defense of the assignment, noting that the "brilliant teacher who's supportive of kids" would allow students to meet the assignment requirements by drawing the map on the back of a plate or forming the geographic features of the continent out of bread, instead of baking.
"She'll totally accept a range of complexity in how they approach it," he says.
Locke also noted that the teacher has given the ungraded and popular assignment for 20 years, that being an art-focused school means da Vinci often has unconventional hands-on approaches to assignments, and that students still will be tested more traditionally on their geography lessons.
More broadly, Locke noted the school offers scholarships for its yearly Ashland field trip, free tap shoes and other arts supplies as needed for students. This year, any sixth-grade parent who requested it didn't have to pay for the $25 binder the school requires.
"We absolutely want everyone to feel welcome," says Locke. "And we never want means to be a barrier."
The leaking of the email may result in adding an option for a collage next year.
In the meantime, parents (and kids), we suggest you play it safe by making sure any chocolate on the maps is fair-trade, organic, slavery-free,and sweetened only with cane sugar.
The full email to parents appears below:
UPDATE, 10:05 pm: Portland Public Schools' Africa-map bake-off may not happen.
Following today's WW story, the da Vinci Middle School teacher who assigned the homework of creating an edible 3-D map of Africa has reconsidered. Students may now "feel free to use found objects" to create the map.
The reversal is outlined in an email sent late Friday to parents and released by Portland Public Schools. The teacher is also offering the students glue in her classroom on Tuesday to finish putting together their projects before school or at lunch.
Here's the text of the teacher's email:
Willamette Week