Compare and contrast.
It seems that the father is a serial fantasist and Walter Mitty character who has made up all sorts of stuff in the past. Perhaps he was trying to get his own back at the school for not placing the girl's project in the top 4 in the local competition. Anyway, regardless of the motivation, it's case closed, I think - remember balloon boy?
It seems that the father is a serial fantasist and Walter Mitty character who has made up all sorts of stuff in the past. Perhaps he was trying to get his own back at the school for not placing the girl's project in the top 4 in the local competition. Anyway, regardless of the motivation, it's case closed, I think - remember balloon boy?
6 comments:
That's my conclusion, too. Daddy done did it.
Eli is devastated by this story. It has the potential to drive a whole school full of children away from learning science and have a similar effect on even more kids. We, and it really means we, need to do what we can to limit the damage. Part of that is to reach out to the school.
I don't really see the concern. Is it any worse than balloon boy (also science-related, the father was an amateur[ish] experimenter)?
The association of science fairs with fraud does seem rather worse, James, the status of science in the Texas public schools being especially tenuous just now..
It would be interesting to know how the school (and the local newspaper) are dealing with this, but Eli's idea of sending suitable science books seems unalloyedly good.
Seems to me the association is with a fantasist parent and fraud. But this is only a hypothesis at this stage. Assuming I'm right, the girl has to learn to live with the foibles of her family - and it's quite possible she was in on it from the start.
Maybe everyone will take it as a useful lesson on the perils of lying...
The problem is not (only) the girl, but everyone in the school and the town who will be feeling embarrassed about this. People, especially young people, avoid what embarrasses them.
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