wrote:
They do really require that homework be handed in. So about the best you can do
is to slough off on the assignment and turn in a poor product. But there are
two problem with that:

1. My son wanted to do a decent job. Letter grade or no.
2. Is this something I'd ever want to teach anyway??!? (Even skippin the
homework?)

I had an advisor in grad school who told me that the most important
thing to learn was what jobs should be done poorly. I've never been
sure what to make of that, but there's probably something there.

Any number of decent interpretations.

I don't think it's true that "anything worth doing is worth doing
well." In fact, it's probably the fear of not doing something perfectly
that prevents a lot of things from getting accomplished at all -- as
well as lack of hours in the day for getting to everything. Sometimes
"good enough" is, well, good enough. (i.e., better to get the family
photos into an album rather than shove them in a box until you have the
coordinating photo albums, scrapbooks, special scissors and adhesives,
special markers, stickers, and time to assemble each themed collection
with clever captions that accurately reflect the date, occasion and
identies of all pictured for each photo -- this is one of my own
hobgoblins.)

I also think it's possible that if you do something that no one else in
the family or office wants to do, and you do it extremely well, you
could be stuck doing it forever and ever.

Lori G.