No wonder kids have such big backpacks these days
By adamg - Mon, 08/11/2008 - 7:41pm.
Meredith O'Brien posts the list of school supplies one of her fourth grader's teachers is requiring her to show up at school with - rivaling the amount of supplies Magellan brought on his voyage - including:
Nine twin pocket folders, one of each color, no clasps inside: tan, yellow, light blue, dark blue, orange, green, red, purple, white. (NOTE: Has anyone seen a tan pocket folder? I'm afraid this is going to be difficult to locate.)
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Weird
When I went to school the teachers never told us which color folders to bring in, or even how many folders, or even whether we had to bring folders at all. That didn't stop me from drooling over the sparkly unicorn Trapper Keepers every year though :-).
Oh, dear, the kidlet's school is so primitive
After I read Meredith's lists, I asked the kidlet what she was told to bring on her first day of fourth grade last September:
"A notebook."
Nothing else?
"Nope."
NFW
What ever happened to a couple of Peechees? Jeesh.
Two of the teachers that my son might have (but probably won't) sent out lists to all the fifth graders about "supplies" at the end of the school year last year. They are the same two teachers who have been extremely resistant and nasty to having male colleagues and they are some of the least competent in the school -according to some parents who are also teachers.
Neither of these entitled tenure burnouts demanded anything on this scale - most of it was pretty reasonable, if you consider the school not giving janitors latitude to buy basic stuff like tissues and paper towels to be reasonable. (my uncle the school custodian in a large west coast school system freaks when I tell him these things)
I see a list like that and I know it is going to be a bad year, because somebody has confused pedagogy with micromanagement and is demanding these ridiculous material tributes as a sign of fealty. Being a control freak is not the same as running a disciplined classroom, and the level of specification here is ominous for kids not actually learning anything beyond those learned as toddlers with a shape sorter.
My middle schooler needs spiral notebooks for each of four major subjects and a three ring binder. Pens and pencils, of course. A zippered folder style three-ring to hold his portfolio is recommended, but not required. Full stop. What is wrong with these people?
Could this be the teacher's
Could this be the teacher's way of driving home that the school system is underfunded?
That was the first thing that came to mind when I was those lists, since as I remember oh so many years ago, most of that stuff (scissors, glue, markers, crayons, ruler) was provided for us. Heck, sometimes paper and composition books were as well.
It would depend on what they ask for
Two boxes of facial tissue and a roll of paper towels? Yes.
Nine specifically color coded folders specified by brand? No. Specific brand, size and model of scissors? No.
Underfunded teachers don't specify their requests to the same level. They will ask for 9 folders, not 9 mead supersnot hotshot organizing system folders special rainbow pack ... and they ask for practical things. They usually understand that supplies are expensive, and therefore don't specify brands unless it really matters.
Micromanagers and control freaks, IMHO, get real specific and demand some needlessly expensive things without regard for the burdens they impose in shopping time and cost. If you fail to produce these items, you get chewed out for "not caring about your kid's education" and all that bullshit, when their demands are unreasonable to start with. These requests are not about education or really about good classroom supply and organization - they are all about control and making people jump through hoops.
Well the thing is I can
Well the thing is I can understand the teacher wanting a little bit of order, it may make her a better teacher. When she walks into the room with handouts and says, this is for Science (blue folder) she knows all the kids will put the papers into the blue folder and it will fit because she knows in advance already.
I had an 8th grade teacher that required 2 composition notebooks, 2 snap closed binders, number 2 pencils, at least one blue pen, one red pen and one black pen and maybe a few other things. The composition notebooks were turned in every week and included assignments for homework during the week (I think it was English and maybe History) and that was all done in black. She would correct it then give it back to us. While taking notes (in the same book) blue was used for notetaking and then she would switch off and tell us to use red pens for sidenotes and corrections. She was pretty anal about it, but she didnt care about the brands and what not , as long as they all worked the same way. I had a neon green and neon orange compostion books my mother found at a store and the teacher didnt mind (some people had blue, green or red ones as well.) Also with the composition books, there was no "losing your homework" unless you lost the whole book, which is much harder to make a case for more than once.
I actually used the red and blue pen system in high school and college and it worked great! My notes made much more sense when I did that because I was able to focus on what I wrote rather than decipher the difference between this blue word and that one, which one is right!?!?!? Well the red one is the correction so the red one is right. I hated her for being such a pain in the butt, but truth be told I still have a blue pen, a black pen, and a red pen on my desk at all times.
I believe introductions are in order
Hammer, meet nail.
Couldn't agree more.