I thought I’d share something I saw in the paper recently. Locals will recognize some of the problems, and out-of-towners may be surprised by a few things. I don’t know that I have an opinion on this topic yet, but I’m posting because the whole thing struck me as very sad. So I guess I do have an opinion.
Here’s a column about “Project Connect,” a program that publishes a wishlist for local teachers. I believe it is for most of the public schools in the area. Educators request items that will “improve their classrooms,” and businesses or individuals can buy something off the list and send it in.
Before you look at the list, think about what you expect to see. Think about what was in your childhood classrooms.
Now, check it out: Project Connect.
Here are some items that caught my eye:
Floor lamps. Auditorium curtains. New sod and a tree by a portable classroom. Flower beds around the school. Book stands. Easels. Gift card to Barnes & Noble to buy books to supplement classroom library. Baby wipes. Area rugs. Printer cartridges (requested many times). Book sets. $350-$400 requested by principal for Principal’s Pick books. Outdoor benches. 24 life jackets (12 child small and 12 child large) for swimming program.
I can’t believe what I’m reading. Go ahead — call me a liberal communist welfare-loving hippie. I’m used to it. Public schools need things like ample light, grass, flowers, books, baby wipes, rugs, books, life jackets, books, printer cartridges, books, and printer cartridges, and this is how it has to happen? Aren’t a lot of these things basic school supplies?
I know I’m simplifying. I like that, though, because I’m a simple guy, and government sure is complicated. It’s not for me, especially when I ask questions like, “How can federal and state governments fund Stupid Project A, Stupid Project 5, and Stupid Project XQ-130, but not make sure public schools have things like, oh, call me crazy…books! Rugs! Lamps!”
But no. No. That’s not right. We shouldn’t be paying taxes. We shouldn’t have to pay for anything, ever, if it doesn’t involve our tiny little selves in our tiny little worlds. Books? Who reads books? Nobody, so you don’t need lamps, do you? Life jackets? Who cares — aren’t they learning how to swim? They don’t need life jackets. Baby wipes! Use sheets torn out of the phone book. Benches? Sit on the muddy, sewage-soaked ground God gave ya! Printer cartridges? What are we printing when we aren’t reading anything and can’t see because the room is PITCH BLACK?!?
Why haven’t I been elected yet? I provide rock solid solutions, people, and they won’t cost you a dime. Sure, your kids may look like Pigpen, be illiterate, have dirty butts, and some might even drown. But I can promise you, you won’t pay a cent and that pesky teacher won’t be asking for any more handouts.
I guess all I can do is take the piggy bank on my kitchen counter and dedicate it to a B&N gift card. I have a feeling that’s a lot more than I’ll ever accomplish asking silly questions. At the very least, my $43.81 won’t be divided among fourteen politicians with their heads firmly entrenched in their posteriors.
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So like alex, I would collect spare change from my car or under the couch and make a small donation. But I was reading through the list and found that one of the schools was looking for guest speakers and specifically listed weather forecasters! Whoo hoo! Instant Validation for my career choice. What better way to feel better about the grind of work than through the admiration of a 10 year old! Now I can inspire some elementary school kid to go into meteorology, struggle through calculus, physics and thermodynamics only to work long hours at all times of the day. (Actually I’m quite happy with my career path, and I dont think I’d change much of anything about it) I encourage all of you to look through these lists and find somthing…anything to help. (now cue music to “children are our future”)….
That’s pretty cool. I wonder if they do any background check or verification? Because if not, I’m going to tell some kids all about my time as a spy.
Which brings me to my favorite possibility for lying on your resume… Do you think if you list the CIA as a former employer — let’s just say to fill the gap of time spent in prison or hitch hiking through Columbia looking for that perfect combination of coffee and cocaine — that your new HR department can do anything to check?
I know there is a lot of talk about the southern half of our county making it difficult for the entire county to get funds for the schools — and these lists really seem to highlight how unfunded they are. But since all of these school are in the southern, supposedly much wealthier, half of the county, don’t you think more people would be stepping up to provide books and clipboards and dry erase markers? Not to call anyone out or anything, but I wonder what would happen if some people spent less time on the golf course and just one afternoon a week helping out at one of the schools? I wonder how much better of the kids would be if people came out of their gated communities and shared their extensive experiences and education with them? Just a crazy thought.
Ben — your career choice is validated every day that you get the guy upstairs to mail in a really nice day. Plus, you explain stuff so that idiots like me understand it. I think kids really enjoy seeing people talk about work they enjoy — so the combination of your knowledge and enjoyment of the weather would be a really good learning experience for them. And if they start to act bored, just make up stories about how you were a spy and the government got you to change the weather so you could go in and assassinate someone.
This will be unpopular. I am old, but this will make me sound really old. I grew up in the south carolina public school system. And you ask what was in my school and what did I expect to see on the list. Let me tell you I think these kids are living it up. I know this sounds like a “when I was your age…” grumpy old man thing BUT here it is. When I went to school. I never ever remember having a rug of any sort. Only those walmart like shiny tiles. Never had any landscaping around the school no flowers no flower beds only the ones we planted in science. We didn’t have ink printers we had these really totally illegible purple weird copies that the teachers called ‘dittos’ and for some reason when ever they came out they were warm and if you sniffed really hard on them they would make you high. I just had a conversation with my friend trey about how we would wait for the school to open and have to sit on the freezing cold concrete for hours in the winter… so no benches. And life jackets? Come on… how the hell do they have a pool. I’m not saying any of this is right. But I am saying it hasn’t really changed. There are probably people out there who are thinking,’well thats how I grew up and I turned out fine’ Some people may say it is bad, but it is kind of like cubicle work one day you look back and say… that sucked but it was also kind of fun too. It provided people like me with much needed character. (and lack of grammer of geography skills) PS Die hippies!!!
I went to a bunch of different school systems — all public –and some of them had really cool playgrounds and flower beds and awesome libraries. And some of them had almost nothing. The thing I remember most was that they were trying to change how we were educated — so we didn’t just sit in the moldy classrooms with the shiny cold floors, we got to have all sorts of interesting people come speak to us and we got to do some really cool things (Did you take the trip to COSI Ben?). I think there is a lot about education that has and is changing — but one thing that I think has really changed is the involvement of the community and each school’s place in its community. I don’t think any school I went to had proper funding — but we had rocking chairs and costumes and choir trips and Spanish trips and projectors because the teachers and the parents and the students got together to raise some money, build some sets, sell some cookies, Christmas ornaments, pizzas, magazines or whatever. And the students who couldn’t afford it on their own were taken care of because if there is one thing everyone can do, it is fundraising. My parents were never asked to cough up $1000 dollars for a trip — they would have laughed us all out of town anyway — we had to sell the bejeezus out of some crap (my parents still have a ton of cow ornaments from three kids going through THAT fundraiser). So I see Jam Master’s point — dude, we didn’t have swimming lessons, and we had computer labs everyone shared, and we didn’t get breakfast in a warm cafeteria (in Akron my school didn’t even have a cafeteria or a gym) before school. And now that schools are so high tech and teachers have to teach to 28 kids with ADHD, and every kid is a super star, I only have one person ever ask me to buy something for their kids’ fundraisers. But I think I’m somewhat ignorant to how much the education system has changed — does every student need acrylic clipboards and every teacher need an LCD projector? I hope not, otherwise if I ever have kids, you know where the bake sale will be…
Once, when I was in Hondruas, a group of volunteers brought a bunch of school supplies to the local school in Rotan and I was amazed at the schools there. Dirt floors, no lights, no air conditioning. The kids were barefoot and begging. But thanks to us these kids had brand new Crayola Crayons. Never felt more useless in my life. But apparently I should have just sent the crayons to the South Carolina school district. Unfortunately, it probably would have made me feel just as useless.
Do we want the same for our kids, or better? I think most of us could say we made it out of schools so poor the teachers didn’t even have rulers to beat us with. Just like our parents survived even though they had to walk 10 miles to school, in blizzards, uphill both ways every day of the year. I want to make sure my kid is beaten with the finest equipment available. Otherwise, where have we come in 20 years? I may have turned out okay, but I don’t want a clone. I want an improved little Alex Jr. who knows more about literature and math and science and computers in 4th grade than I did in high school (which is probably easy to accomplish).
I won’t get too far into my commie roots, but I also don’t like to think that our kids’ educations are dependent on individuals, small communities, or local businesses…we have a multi-bazillion dollar economy and I don’t think we prioritize government spending properly. Why does little Beatrice have to go door to door selling cheese balls?
I know I’m being totally unrealistic. If Beatrice doesn’t sell cheese balls, there won’t be anyone to help her go on that trip or get that software.
Corporate America is busy funding lacrosse retreats for their kids’ private schools, and the politicians are building up legal funds for bailing Yalies out of DUI charges. I think that sucks, and there’s probably nothing to be done. Why would the people with the wealth and power in this country give a crap about a public school teacher asking for B&N gift cards in the newspaper? They don’t.
So it’s up to us to bust open piggy banks and sell brownies. We make do, we churn out bright little young folks, and hope they can figure something out that we couldn’t.
[edit] — oh wait, I’m supposed to be more positive. Ok, on the positive side, we’ll always have lots of brownies to eat. And cheese balls. And our kids will learn about redistribution of wealth, etc., the good ol’ fashioned way.
Shoot! Positive! Stay positive!
You have sold me Alex. I am writing you in for the next election. Obama has nothing on you.
Where’s the campaign pic though?
Yes I am calling for the diamond dave campaign pic?
P.S. Cheesballs are for hippies.
When I was their age I had to go door to door and sell raw balls of ground beef. And let me tell you it was a pretty hard sell when its like 85 degrees outside and you have gristle running down your arms. Needless to say I didn’t go on many field trips =)
I don’t think my “I want to make sure kids — all of our shiny, happy, Ritalin-addicted kids — are beaten with the finest school supplies available!” slogan would go over well.
When I was little, we didn’t have books. We had rocks. And when we wanted to learn we bashed ourselves in the head with our rocks until we fell over. When we woke up, we started again. Sometimes we’d chew the rocks. Other times, mainly in the spring, there’d be grass around our pen and we’d take a long, green piece of Kentucky bluegrass and try to put it in our mouth and pull it out our nose. Then, eventually, we received “diplomas,” which are very similar to menus and will get you 10 free tokens at Chuck E. Cheese or Medieval Times.
And that, constituents, is how I became the man I am today: The lazy, sanctimonious, communist-when-convenient, fiscal…what does “fiscal” mean…oh well, fiscal Quixote who re-works government budgets on the fly without regard for any other issue other than what’s on my mind at a given moment. That is my platform. Those are my talking points. Who’s coming with me? Who’s with…
Alex ‘08!
[img]http://moodytunes.com/images/king_sm.jpg[/img]
I thought the president said last night that”No Child Left Behind” is working. I guess if the classroom is pitch black you can’t leave behind what you can’t see.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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