Stupid Busy Work

Wow! Why do schools feel the need to give busy work to my child? I'm sure it's not JUST mine, but that's what I'm in a tizzy about today! He is in 4th grade. He has been behind on this grid project for a couple weeks. It requires coloring. He has to follow numbers and letters to arrive at a location on the paper. Once he has allowed his genius to be abused in such a fashion, a "surprise" picture miraculously appears. It's a family of bunnies! Good God! Really? I took pity on the boy and colored for him. Please! Hold your gasp of indignation! For the first HOUR, I had him tell me where and what color. For the next HOUR AND A HALF I set him to work doing something useful. He hauled a huge pile of wood to the pit for me. Man work! I did the coloring. Girl work! Yes, it's true, I do happen to like coloring. It did not however have absolutely any educational value in my opinion..as fun as it was. NOT! I like to pick my own coloring books. Seriously, who's in charge? Do we send people through four years of college to teach intelligent children to color in a small box neatly? What the hell do they think he's going to be when he grows up? An idiot? I should mention he is in a Technology "forward" school. They should be building evil robots or hacking something, right? Not coloring!