Personal Research Project.....What The ****??????

My eldest, my sweet and gentle Mr16 is in Year 11 this year.  He is doing well and while doing his Year 11 studies he is also studying Certificate 1 in Hospitality with the view possibly, potentially, maybe (this is his mindset right now lol) of becoming a Chef, or a Bar  Tender with the latter being his preference right now.

Now school has never been his strong point.  Studying for him is hard but he doesn't complain much and just does what he needs to do.  This year they have thrown something extra at the kids.  They have to do a Personal Research Project.  This was a new thing to be introduced to Australian schools just last year.  This project can be of their choosing, topic wise,,,,or so they said.  Supposedly it is meant to be about the career path they were choosing.  Well I don't think many of the kids have chosen any question relating to their career paths, namely because most of the kids don't really seem to know what they want to do, my son included.

My boy decided after much tossing and turning to do a project relating to Peak Oil and what will happen when Peak Oil arrives.  Well okay, we had a topic.  He told the teachers and they said he had to formulate that topic into a question.  We came up with "How will the Peak Oil crisis affect family's day to day lives?".  Now I thought this was pretty good but nope it was too broad.  After much deliberation and changing his question around the teachers decided that the ideal question would be "How will Peak Oil affect our local council area?".  He told me and I just about freaked, I mean really!  He needs to narrow it down to that much of a specific area????????  For crying out loud, they want him to go to the library and put a questionnaire there for people to fill out.  They want the kids to go out of their comfort zone for this project.  They want them to have to go into the community and get people's opinions and thoughts and beliefs.

Now I did Year 12 at school, and never did I have to do anything so ridiculous.  This project is aimed at expanding their abilities for their future.  I just don't see it.  There are kids doing their projects on Hitler, Music Groups,,,,,,,please tell me how they will be "advanced" by doing this??????

They want him to study how this will affect our local council and to find information relating to it.  Well I thought I would give the council a call and see if there was any information available at all or if there was someone within the council that he would be able to have a chat to........hmmm I got met with blankness and questions of "What is Peak Oil all about?".

He is disheartened to say the least.  He has no idea how to approach this project and what makes it worse is that the teachers don't really have a clue either.

I am considering changing things around for him and throwing in a bit of guess work and doing things solely online (which is a no no) but I believe we can fake it to make it look like they were real opinions from locals lol.  Sheesh I seriously have to put my thinking cap on, for how best to help him with this one.

Like the poor kids these days don't already have enough on their plates, this is just another thing to have to think about and stress about for them.  I believe for most of the kids, this is a project that will just be a total waste of time and get them no where.

Grrrr I am so frustrated with the whole education system right now.  This problem is just the tip of the iceberg in our house at the moment, I could go on for days!!!!