by Lorna Harris on May 8, 2009
There are lots of rites of passage in school. In England, the Christmas Nativity Play is the first big one. It’s for the children in the beginning stages of school, when they’re still little and don’t really know what they’re doing. Watching the play, a re-enactment of the Christmas story is hysterical. Children flub their lines, look into the audience and freeze. Plus there’s always one child that steals the show (yes, you know the one I mean).
Progressive schools don’t stop at Mary, Joseph, wise men and a few shepherds. They’ve developed the story a little further to show that god loves everyone. So, during our years at school in the UK, our sons have been sharks, caterpillars, parrots, and goats. Oh yes, it all relates back to the Nativity, add a song about a sad shark, that’s not loved by anyone, suddenly everyone’s welcome at the manger.
If you’ve seen Love Actually you’ll remember, at the end of the film, Hugh Grant desperately tries to find his secretary. He arrives at her family’s house as they are heading off to the school play with their son dressed as an octopus. I could completely relate to the scene and the mother explaining that she’d made the costume: ‘Eight is a lot of legs, David.’ Yes, with the chaos of Christmas, the planning, shopping, card writing, throw in the making of a ridiculous nativity costume for added stress.
Fast-forward to 4th Grade in a Californian school and it’s the Mission Project that’s the landmark. I didn’t know anything about this, so we’ve been learning as we go. Everyone remembers their Mission Project and their Mission. Ask any Californian about it and they’ll instantly know their Mission. They’ll reminisce: ‘Aah, yes, mine was Mission Santa Barbara.’ There are lots of Missions scattered about California, each child is assigned one and they have to build a replica out of something. One suggestion was sugar cubes, which inspired my son, and he was off. In a few days, with several packets of sugar cubes and lots and lots of glue, he’d created Mission San Miguel Arcangel. Missions are adobe buildings which was handy. The wonky sugar cubes gave a true realistic feeling of the rough building.
We needed additional items for the Mission and I felt a trip to Michael’s was in order. I hate Michael’s. It’s my idea of hell. It’s a supermarket for people who like to do crafts. Aisles and aisles of glue guns, stickers, plastic flowers, scrap booking stuff. Yuk. We headed in looking for something that would be suitable for a few finishing touches to the Mission and discovered an entire Mission Project aisle. Michael’s has realized there are people out there who don’t have a hope in hell in producing models without complete and utter help. You can buy an entire Mission made out of polystyrene that you just glue together. Church bells, crosses, palm trees, animals, angels, stones, and fountains. You name it, they’ve got it. We scooped up what we needed and headed to the check out. Instantly the store assistants began their reminiscing, ‘oh I remember the Mission project, I was Mission San Luis Rey.’ The other assistant, ‘Really? I was Mission San Fernando Rey de España.’ And so it continued.
The sugar cube mission was decorated with our Michael’s purchases and then placed in the car to be driven to school. I’ve never driven so slowly in my life. Negotiating traffic, terrified the sugar cubes would disintegrate and tears would flow. All the children brought in their Mission projects. Some had gone the easy route and grabbed the polystyrene packet from Michael’s, others had used cardboards boxes. One child had made a PowerPoint presentation, which was set up on a laptop and played. (Yes, really.) We had a Mission Walk, the parents walking around the hall looking at all the work. It was a big deal for the children.
It’s now sitting in the garage, getting a bit sadder week by week. It’s made of sugar cubes, it’s not going to last forever. We’ve arrived back just in time for Declan to experience the 4th Grade rite of passage and in years to come if people ask him if he did the Mission Project, he’ll be able to answer ‘Ooh yes, my Mission was San Miguel Arcangel. I think the model is still in my parents’ garage somewhere.’ http://califlorna.com/mission-accomplished-202