Not the Post I Intended to Write

My last classroom

I'm behind in my posts once again and had planned to write part 3 of Adventures in Flopsy. Having read the following article on a friend's Facebook page http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/naomi-lazarus/bc-schools-funding-isubsidizebced_b_5870234.html, my desire to add my two cents worth to the conversation is greater than my desire to conclude the Flopsy adventure. I'll probably get around to that eventually.

In my 30 years in the classroom I bought tons of stuff for students and I did it for purely selfish reasons, the same reasons that I spent time during family dinners off in some remote bedroom marking papers while people were chatting: facing a group of 30 teenagers without proper preparation is scary. The alternative of not buying the supplies or not spending the hours in preparation and marking was, quite simply, unthinkable.

The area behind my desk

In order for students to learn and teachers to teach you need more than a concrete box with a few desks, a blackboard (or a whiteboard) and some chalk. Students learn best when they can employ different senses and different strategies. Why did I buy the stuff? It was either in short supply, unavailable, inconvenient to access or sub standard. How can you teach an advertising unit when the only colours of markers left by December are brown and purple?

Off the top of my head here is a partial list of things I provided for the classroom throughout my career. Some I bought and some I scrounged. Teachers learn early to be expert scroungers and problem solvers.

• construction paper
• 11X14 coloured paper which I used to distinguish assignments for different classes
• art paper – The art department doesn't have a huge budget either and they can't be subsidizing the English department.
• Stickers – yes I did use stickers in high school to indicate on a wall chart which assignments were going to be graded and which ones were for practice
• sticky notes so kids could keep track of passages in novels without writing in the books
• transparent tape - The school sometimes had some but there was never enough.
• rulers - Perhaps I don't share well and didn't want to have to share the half dozen the department had with other teachers who wanted them in the same period. If you use a tool frequently you want it available without having to book it or track it down
• coloured pencils – similar problem to markers
• an overhead projector – Okay I didn't buy this. I inherited it from my father who was a math teacher and also bought a spirit duplicator and a small offset printing machine which he kept in his basement office.
• computers – Richard and I donated the 5 computers, that he had accumulated and used in his Microsoft training, so that I could have a network in my classroom and at least some students could write directly on the keyboard instead of having to write by hand and then transcribe their writing so it could be printed out.
• 2 printers at 2 different schools
• extension cords to power the computers
• overhead transparencies
• overhead markers
• stamps – the happy face kind, not the kind for mailing letters
• scissors
• glue sticks
• colour-coding dots
• pens and pencils for my and the student's use Sometimes I sold pens to the students at 10 cents each. That way I wasn't making a profit, which was against the code of professional conduct, but the pens weren't just free i.e. of no value.
• books, many many books
• various holders for papers
• a vacuum cleaner – not a new one, an old one that I inherited. The custodians didn't have enough time to clean each classroom thoroughly each day and sometimes during projects my classes made a huge mess. Leaning is like that.
• two sets of drawers to increase the storage capacity in the classroom
• tissues - I tried inviting students to supply a box of tissues when the one in the classroom ran out but only one ever did. Eventually I switched to toilet paper. It was cheaper and students tended to use less.
• cleaning products - If a desk is dirty, help the class out by cleaning it.
• staplers

  

  One of the many posters I bought

  
  
• a 3 hole punch
• a staple remover
• corrugated paper to cover up torn bulletin boards - The bulletin boards in my last classroom were in good enough shape so I left them.
• colourful posters
• large scale calendars to keep track of assignments for various classes
• computer disks in the days when the world could be organized on a floppy
• cardboard and string for book-binding projects

This isn't a comprehensive list but you get the idea. I didn't bother to keep track of how much I spent over the years. Why would I? It would just be depressing and there was no way I could claim any of it as a business expense.

There are those who will say I didn't have to do it and, technically, they are right. Practically though, I could not have survived in the classroom or been as effective a teacher as I was without those supplies. It was an investment in the students' learning and in my sanity. It was a deliberate choice I made and I would make the same choice again. The point is no teacher should have to.