Tales from the Steppes

2006-01-11

9:01 a.m.
Wednesday, January 11

Last night I got home from an appointment in Baltimore to find the EM working on a school project that was due on Thursday. I had asked about this project the night before but had been assured that it was a class project, not a home project. She sheepishly came up and admitted that she asked the teacher and I was correct about what was supposed to be happening with this assignment. Sort of a Pyrrhic victory for me, as I now had to spend my evening on her schoolwork, not mine.

But she had already started the assignment so this was a happy thing. Or not, as the case turned out. It seems that she was essentially paraphrasing the Wikipedia entry on Julius Caesar and her father had ok'ed this approach. So we had a little chat about plagiarism and why this is such a bad thing. And it did not even satisfy the requirements of the assignment, which was to write about how Caesar believed that Rome shoud be ruled by one person.

I am all for using the Internet to research but I think it can be a very dangerous tool. For this assignment, my daughter needed at least one primary source, so she had spent (wasted) a lot of time researching quotes from Julius Caesar. Can we guess who wrote every single one of those quotes? William Shakespeare. But they were reported as being said by Caesar. So I printed out Suetonius' 12 Caesars, as well as Caesars own account of the civil war, so she would have a couple of primary sources. But it did take some talking to convince her that his last words were probably not "Et tu Brute? Then fall Caesar." Because it said so on 50 meeellion web pages. Sigh.

Tonight her essay will have to be put off for a bit because the MM has youth combat. He finally got to put on armor and practice for the first time on New Years Day and loved it. He did quite well, especially given that the other kids had been fighting for more than a year. He could easily hold his own and I am sure will only improve with more practice. I think I am going to take all of the mongols to Ymir this year so he can fight in his first tourney. I still have to complete his shield and make his lamellar, but only the shield is necessary before the tourney. And maybe a helm crest for his hockey helmet...