I am asking if you as parents have been asked by your kids to do something as a school project called the family bio. They do it in their junior year. It is essentially a detailed biography of the life of a grandparent. There are multiple parts and interviews recorded on tape and the completed project ends up being a mini book of 60 pages.
While it is a perfectly valid learning process there are several other aspects of life school does not make any attempt to prepare these kids for the lives they will lead in an increasingly Machiavellian society.
The entire thing strikes me as an endorsement of data mining. Five years ago when my oldest daughter this was not even a concern. My second daughter did the very same project but something happened four years after she was out of high school. An Army recruiter called her on a brand new cell phone number. The recruiter, A, had the number and B, knew what she was taking in college. Yes, every recruiter in my area got blasted and I was reading very nasty email replies for a solid week. They never called again though.
Ever since that incident much attention has been given to all siblings on how best to minimize their digital footprints. I now think this is far more important than reducing their carbon footprints.
In a world of dwindling privacy I can no longer support it when someone asks “tell me about yourself”.
Is the family bio a nationwide phenomena?
I haven’t heard of this per se, but then again, my kid is only in Middle School (aka Jr. High). But since she was in Kindergarten, she has had to do reports about our family, our heritage, our cultural heritage, our customs, our food, ad nauseum. While I understand her teachers are just trying to discuss and explore multiple cultures with increasingly diverse classrooms, it has always been a real challenge for her and I. We are consumate Americans with the lack of culture and heritage that entails. We hold onto none of our heritage (distantly English and Welsh) and aren’t exactly proud to be decendants of the Mayflower and the genocide that entails.
Just recently, she was required to write a report on three family members she lives with. She tried to explain that it was just me and her and that we didn’t even have so much as a house plant, but the teacher had a hard time believing her.
Of her four grandparents, she couldn’t name the two on her father’s side and never met them. On my side, one is dead and we try to avoid the other. It would be excruciatingly difficult and painful.
I agree with you about the privacy issues, and certainly if these reports end up on-line. Nevertheless, I’ve always found these sorts of projects to be practically impossible for some kids, not to mention emotionally challenging.
Since NCLB was put into effect, high schools have been mandated to hand over student information to the military, or lose federal funds.
I doubt that your daughter’s project led to the phone call as schools are not required to hand over that kind of information. I would not be surprised if colleges, cell phone companies, etc. sold her name to the military.
Unless someone is prepared to go completely “dark,” it is almost impossible to avoid the type of calls your daughter received.
I almost can’t wait until KamaKid get’s these calls. I can just imagine what she would say… I could see her taping conversations with recruiters that would be terribly damaging. hehehehe
They do seem to be learning about this issue. My oldest daughter recently spoke about avoiding “reward” offers and the connection to increases in junk mail,and phone solicitations. My second daughter now only keeps a single credit card. They are starting to learn which banks carry the highest amounts of hassle and are deleting these cards.
Going “dark” today is just about impossible.
My oldest is a junior this year. I’ve never heard of this. They probably never thought of the potential problems with the assignment, but it would be a good idea to point them out.
My 8 year old has been doing these for a while now. In his case at least, reading his scrawl would be a great impediment to dispersal of the information. But I would agree with the above, NCLB is the likely culprit here.
Wow. This has been interesting. Maybe I should do a reverse family bio. I should ask the kids what they think of these times and what they think about privacy issues. I have to reread and fully analyze the assignment outline.