We're supposed to be learning, right?

This morning I had flashbacks of weird activities for some of my classes before (don't ask me why. I can't explain it, in much the same way I can't explain why I've been having strange dreams lately of child-manananggals and aneurysms turning into chicken pox):

1. List the number of rooms you have in your house. (What was that about?) I do remember that one girl asked, "Miss, does that include the guard house?" The teacher seemed taken aback. This was Povey-da after all.
2. Write out your life story, including details of your death and your funeral. This is a terribly morbid thing to ask of a fourth grader! For some reason, I sentenced myself to die by breast cancer. What the fuck was I thinking?
3. Imagine you were on a boat that started sinking--who would you save? This activity had me bawling because I had to choose between my mom and my dad. Why oh why do they put grade schoolers through this kind of crap? I never seem to remember the purpose behind these exercises--just the resentment and trauma from being made to decide something like that.
4. Watch the movie version of Stephen King's Carrie for--get this--Biology class. When asked what this had to do with Bio, the teacher explained that Carrie gets her period in the first part of the movie. Intro to reproduction. Ahh...that makes...sense? So get your period and your whole class will perish in a flaming gym during prom?
   
5. Sing "There's a mice, there's a mice in the middle of the field," a song composed by the same Bio teacher. "Sir, di ba dapat 'There's a mouse'?" we pointed out, to which he replied, "Poetic license, poetic license."

Everyone's got a homework horror story (or at least a homework head-scratcher). It kind of makes me want to have my kids home-schooled.