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These lists were common for my daughter who is now 28 years old, back in the day. The PTA got smart and just purchased in bulk and each child paid for a classroom "package" at registration each year. I think it was $25-35/year for the package. PTA got it cheaper because they were buying in massive bulk, parents did not have to shop, and every kid who came had his zip lock bag package with his name sticker on it when he showed up at his desk on Day 1. Problem solved. Parents who could not afford it were provided resources at registration so the student did not have to be embarrassed by showing up with nothing.
Calculators and computers? Are you living in the Dark Ages? I use a computer all day long at work. I have three monitors on my desk and a laptop as well. Everything I do is on a computer. Everything THEY do should be on a computer and learning how to use it. We are never going back to paper. They need to learn enough cursive to sign their name, but as long as they can communicate the written word, I would rather read something legibly typewritten than decipher poor handwriting. They need to learn their math and how to run the numbers, internalize number sense. But since word problems seem to have gone out the window with textbooks in our district because teachers are teaching to the test, that ship has sailed 20 years ago. If you want your kids to understand numbers or comprehend what they are reading, then the parent needs to take care of that. Our child was not even taught multiplication tables. It was tested on a required nationally normed test at the end of 3rd grade and we were told she needed to know them at the beginning of 4th grade, but they were never taught nor drilled. WE taught them the summer before 4th grade when we noticed the deficit on the test scores from 3rd grade. The other kids were relying on calculators in 4th grade for multiplication.
As the wife of a retired teacher, we budgeted every August for classroom supplies and cleaning supplies for my husband's classroom for the year. High school kids are gross and he went through bales of paper towels, kleenex, and pencils. He actually got one of the golf courses to give him their leftover short little pencils that the golfers carry in their pockets to mark their score cards. Kids come to class with nothing to write on and nothing to write with. Call the parents? they don't return calls or emails. Parents leave for work in the morning hours before the kids do (or are sleeping because they are working multiple odd-shift jobs) so kids have not eaten breakfast and do not have a lunch or lunch money, and no one is going to be home to cook dinner tonight. So you're wondering why kids don't have basic school supplies? Heck, they don't have meals or supervision, help with homework, or an adult to talk to about whatever is on their mind...besides their teacher.
Even if it is not specified, buy the good stuff for a few pennies more. It really does matter if they have Crayola rather than Rose Art. The Crayola stuff is just better. The Ticonderoga pencils last much longer than the cheap stuff. I still buy that stuff this time every year. We have an angel tree at work every Christmas and I stuff a back pack with school supplies along with giving a toy for whatever kid gets my donation. I know that they have run out by Christmas. So I buy all that stuff now because it is so cheap.
And if you are wondering, we live in a mid-sized city in the mountain West, neither rich or poor. Just an average city with average families trying to make ends meet. But this is not the 1960s anymore. Mom is not staying at home to manage the house and kids, cooking meals, keeping the house clean, and running errands. In our city most people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet, do not even own their own homes, kids are home alone or in extended day programs at school before/after, there isn't a home cooked meal to be found any more let alone a kid who brings lunch to school unless it is a prepackaged Lunchable.
My child's friends thought we were odd ducks because one of us was usually home before and after school and always in the evening to help with homework. We still eat dinner at the table every night. As adults they come to visit or happen to stop by with our adult child and we always invite them to dinner so they can sit at the table and talk. There's always a pitcher of water and a carton of milk on the table since we have never allowed soda at meals. They enjoy learning how to roast a chicken or make omlettes. I send them out to the veggie garden to grab another tomato and you would think they had a trip to the moon. They come in and tell me how cool it is to pick a tomato! I asked one of them to go out and pick a few more strawberries for dessert and he didn't know what strawberry plants looked like, where to find the strawberries. We didn't allow tv when they were young, except for something special like the Olympics...every 4 years! Our child went to the library, played in sports, had toys and games to play with in her spare time. We took family vacations camping and traveling to museums. We planted gardens and their dad taught them how to work on cars and the house. We are by far not the perfect parents and made our share of mistakes. But families live differently these days and the way we lived/live is the rare exception and by far, not the rule.
A coworker was discussing how much school supplies she had to buy this year for middle school. Here's the list for that school:
1) 6 Pocket folders with clasp
2) 3 boxes Kleenex
3) 2 rolls paper towels
4) 1 hand sanitizer
5) 1 container Clorox wipes
6) Colored pencils
7) #2 pencils
8) Wide ruled notebook paper
9) 2 Pencil Pouches
10) Headphones/earbuds
11) 2 inch 3 ring binder
12) 3 1.5 inch 3 ring binders
13) one 1 inch 3 ring binder
14) graph paper
15) spiral notebook
16) 2 5 pack dividers
17) Red ink pens
18) 3 large black dry erase markers
19) TI34 calculator
20) Pack of highlighters
21) Lots of page protectors
This was the general list. Some of the teachers specified colors for highlighters and specific brands of composition books.
That sounds about right to me.
I know it can seem expensive, but there is nothing that seem over the top on that list.
If you go to Target or Wal-mart it shouldn't be too bad in cost.
I don't think 2-3 pencils per week is unrealistic, especially in middle school, where students change classes all day and maybe have a desk in their homeroom. "Oh, I left my pencil in history/geography/science/language arts/math class"!
I truly don't know why you're making such a big deal about these pencils. If a 12 pack is 99C as nana053 posted, you can get 48 for just under $4.
I don't think kids are "causally toss(ing) (pencils) aside because they can just pull another out of the supply." I think kids genuinely lose them as I posted above. Heck, I was just at the doctor today with my husband. After he left the room, the nurse was fishing around in her pockets for her pen and said "Dr. 'Smith' must have taken my pen". So I lent her one, which she gave back. How many people have lost a pen/pencil that way?
Making this about "personal responsibility" is going a bit far. I suspect schools ask for the quantities they do because they've found that's how many are necessary. It's a little crazy for a thread to go on for 195 posts about how many pencils a middle school child needs!
I don't know how you know why these computers did not get cared for properly. Maybe a lot of parents/kids did not know how to take care of one. Perhaps the school could have given them some intructions.
This has gone on so many pages because this is not about pencils. Trying to make it about pencils is merely an attempt to trivialize the issue so that it gets dismissed rather than resolved. After all it's "for the children." It's really about three interrelated issues.
a. It is about learning personal responsibility. If I lose pen, or a pencil, or my cell phone, then that's my fault, my responsibility to take care. It's my responsibility to pay for and provide those items, not someone else's. Yet with this system we are teaching kids they don't need to be responsible because there is an endless supply provided by someone else. When you have "skin in the game" you are more responsible for caring for it and in education, you are more likely to pay attention and learn.
b. It's not about the pencils, but the other items that are already paid for by taxes. Cleaning supplies and building maintenance supplies are paid for. If a school district is can't buy cleaning supplies, then they have a much different and much bigger problem in management. We have teachers on here saying their schools run out of toilet paper before the end of the year. Well frankly, if a school system runs out of toilet paper and can't buy more, then someone ought to be fired. That's just plain incompetent management. School systems have learned however they can pass the cost onto the parents because "it's for the children."
c. It's not about the pencils but the waste, especially of the more expensive items. Excessive binders where are thrown away at the end of the year. Excessive whiteboard markers which dry out before they are used and tossed or kept in cabinets for years unopened. No one seems to care about the waste except those who pay for it. Think about it. Really, does every class really need a separate 3 ring binder?
Regarding the computers, how do I know? Because the school system had to explain to parents the next year about the change in policy and why they changed it. Think about the irony a minute. They're saying the kids are so irresponsible they can't be trusted to have a pencil and paper when they come to class, but at the same time are so responsible they can be trusted to care for and not break or lose a fragile laptop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazee Cat Lady
That sounds about right to me.
I know it can seem expensive, but there is nothing that seem over the top on that list.
If you go to Target or Wal-mart it shouldn't be too bad in cost.
I gave the cost that list would be at our local store (around $120). The actual school supplies (pencils, paper) were pretty cheap. The high cost came in all the other items. The excessive binders; the special folders (yep, the regular paper folder were a dime a piece, but the ones the school wanted in the specific colors they wanted were more like a buck), the white board makers, essentially all the classroom level building supplies, were what drove the cost up.
It's also interesting that many talk about backpacks at Target for $10. What we've found is like many on here say the Crayola is better, is the cheap backpacks don't last and then you have to buy a more expensive one later in the year anyway. Given the amount of stuff the kids have to carry back and forth, those little cheap ones just don't hold up. Ironically we found the most cost effective backpack solution was to buy a good one that they could use for several years. It was one of the few things they ever got to reuse from one year to the next. But I have specifically not included those costs here because they are so individual.
This has gone on so many pages because this is not about pencils. Trying to make it about pencils is merely an attempt to trivialize the issue so that it gets dismissed rather than resolved. After all it's "for the children." It's really about three interrelated issues.
Not quoting your entire post- but "Amen" to everything you said!
The story about the computers was particularly horrifying.
...Calculators and computers? Are you living in the Dark Ages? I use a computer all day long at work. I have three monitors on my desk and a laptop as well. Everything I do is on a computer. Everything THEY do should be on a computer and learning how to use it. We are never going back to paper. They need to learn enough cursive to sign their name, but as long as they can communicate the written word, I would rather read something legibly typewritten than decipher poor handwriting. They need to learn their math and how to run the numbers, internalize number sense. But since word problems seem to have gone out the window with textbooks in our district because teachers are teaching to the test, that ship has sailed 20 years ago. If you want your kids to understand numbers or comprehend what they are reading, then the parent needs to take care of that. Our child was not even taught multiplication tables. It was tested on a required nationally normed test at the end of 3rd grade and we were told she needed to know them at the beginning of 4th grade, but they were never taught nor drilled. WE taught them the summer before 4th grade when we noticed the deficit on the test scores from 3rd grade. The other kids were relying on calculators in 4th grade for multiplication.
....
I've been hesitant to really discuss this issue because it needs it's own thread, but it is an important issue for discussion. No as a matter of fact I don't live in the Dark Ages. I started out with computers using punch cards and Fortran. And I happen to have spent my career working beyond the bleeding edge. And I see this in my work every day among the younger generation of scientists and engineers. They rely too heavily on what the computer tells them but have no "sense" of whether the computer is right. All their life they have used calculators and computers. Stick numbers in, more numbers come out. And then they just take those numbers and blindly plug them into the next program. They have not ability to relate the numbers to the real world. In many cases the equations don't mind if a number is positive or negative. Except that negative number means you are flying below the earth's surface. That dropped term that doesn't seem to matter can be the difference between crashing Mars and missing entirely. Or between an airliner flying or dying.
That number sense; that sense of what equations mean, is being lost in the easy manipulation of the numbers by calculator and computer. Take "average" for example. Calculators make it easy to stick in some numbers and get an average. But what does it mean? Far too often people get an answer that is arithmetically correct and yet completely wrong.
Numbers have real meaning. Equations shape the universe. We need people who can look beyond the numbers; to see what the equations are really saying. To find that hidden meaning that everyone else is overlooking.
I've been hesitant to really discuss this issue because it needs it's own thread, but it is an important issue for discussion. No as a matter of fact I don't live in the Dark Ages. I started out with computers using punch cards and Fortran. And I happen to have spent my career working beyond the bleeding edge. And I see this in my work every day among the younger generation of scientists and engineers. They rely too heavily on what the computer tells them but have no "sense" of whether the computer is right. All their life they have used calculators and computers. Stick numbers in, more numbers come out. And then they just take those numbers and blindly plug them into the next program. They have not ability to relate the numbers to the real world.
Somewhat off-topic, but...
I've seen similar behaviors in people with their GPS's. They just set up a route, and follow it blindly. Many a time, the route was full of dumb mistakes, even if directionally correct. It would do stupid things like tell the driver to get off an expressway and get back on at the same exit, make three left turns when one right turn is perfectly good and legal, send the driver on a 15-minute detour for no good reason, and take the driver through a 5-mile bumper-to-bumper traffic jam on an expressway when a parallel surface street is nearly empty. I'd try to persuade my friend to go off GPS, like a reasonable person, but he's always refuse, "because that's not what the GPS says". Since it was his car, I had no choice but to grin it and bear it.
Unless I'm lost in a location I don't know, when I use the GPS as a dead-last resort, I always drive the old way: with a map and a compass. Yes, an actual magnetic compass. Granted, the map is Google-based on my smartphone screen (I save trees that way), but I refuse to touch the GPS portion of it.
I've been hesitant to really discuss this issue because it needs it's own thread, but it is an important issue for discussion. No as a matter of fact I don't live in the Dark Ages. I started out with computers using punch cards and Fortran. And I happen to have spent my career working beyond the bleeding edge. And I see this in my work every day among the younger generation of scientists and engineers. They rely too heavily on what the computer tells them but have no "sense" of whether the computer is right. All their life they have used calculators and computers. Stick numbers in, more numbers come out. And then they just take those numbers and blindly plug them into the next program. They have not ability to relate the numbers to the real world. In many cases the equations don't mind if a number is positive or negative. Except that negative number means you are flying below the earth's surface. That dropped term that doesn't seem to matter can be the difference between crashing Mars and missing entirely. Or between an airliner flying or dying.
That number sense; that sense of what equations mean, is being lost in the easy manipulation of the numbers by calculator and computer. Take "average" for example. Calculators make it easy to stick in some numbers and get an average. But what does it mean? Far too often people get an answer that is arithmetically correct and yet completely wrong.
Numbers have real meaning. Equations shape the universe. We need people who can look beyond the numbers; to see what the equations are really saying. To find that hidden meaning that everyone else is overlooking.
I've been hesitant to really discuss this issue because it needs it's own thread, but it is an important issue for discussion. No as a matter of fact I don't live in the Dark Ages. I started out with computers using punch cards and Fortran. And I happen to have spent my career working beyond the bleeding edge. And I see this in my work every day among the younger generation of scientists and engineers. They rely too heavily on what the computer tells them but have no "sense" of whether the computer is right. All their life they have used calculators and computers. Stick numbers in, more numbers come out. And then they just take those numbers and blindly plug them into the next program. They have not ability to relate the numbers to the real world. In many cases the equations don't mind if a number is positive or negative. Except that negative number means you are flying below the earth's surface. That dropped term that doesn't seem to matter can be the difference between crashing Mars and missing entirely. Or between an airliner flying or dying.
That number sense; that sense of what equations mean, is being lost in the easy manipulation of the numbers by calculator and computer. Take "average" for example. Calculators make it easy to stick in some numbers and get an average. But what does it mean? Far too often people get an answer that is arithmetically correct and yet completely wrong.
Numbers have real meaning. Equations shape the universe. We need people who can look beyond the numbers; to see what the equations are really saying. To find that hidden meaning that everyone else is overlooking.
I think the difference is that technology has gone from being a "tool" to being a "crutch".
One has to understand the math first and use the technology to do the arithmetic.
I fully agree that kids today are lacking number sense. "But this is the answer the calculator gave me" with no critical thought as to whether that answer is right or wrong.
So they all get calculators and laptops. Let the technology do the work and they can just cut and paste.
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Granted, the map is Google-based on my smartphone screen (I save trees that way), but I refuse to touch the GPS portion of it.
