teachers' classrooms, minus teacher-purchased items.
August 27, 2015 5:35 AM   Subscribe

What B.C. Public School Classrooms Look Like Without Stuff Bought By Teachers (SLHuffPo, image gallery down the page)
posted by Greg Nog (82 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
Has it always been like that in Canada? Or is this an example of the influence of the US bleeding across the border? Here in the US, this has been the sad norm for at least as long as I've been alive.

I've always wondered if anything would change if teachers, en masse, simply stopped buying all of the supplies that should be provided by the schools, and let parents see exactly how terrible school would really be for their little ones, if not for teachers' spending their own money on them. I'm sure doing so would be spun as "teachers refusing to do their jobs" or something similar, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:47 AM on August 27, 2015 [16 favorites]




Teachers: when you can't squeeze sufficient supply money out of tightfisted taxpayers and school boards, do you ever try getting manufacturers, retailers, and local businesses to come up with donations?
posted by pracowity at 6:04 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


While we do have an educator expense deduction in the US, which I gather doesn't (yet) exist in Canada, it's a deduction, not a credit, and it maxes out at $250/year. (The NEA says teachers average $477 a year.) And more notably, Congress last year refused to extend it by more than a single year, and they refused to authorize it for 2014 until December 2014. Meaning you had to spend out of pocket all year and gamble on getting a deduction. Because we have an estate tax in this country that impacts only multimillionaires and that's fine, but it's apparently extremely controversial to give teachers tax breaks for providing most of what people think a classroom should look like.
posted by Sequence at 6:09 AM on August 27, 2015 [10 favorites]


There are other reasons too. When I started teaching, I was hired in August. My predecessor had already spent my budget for the year the previous May and left behind absolutely no curriculum nor intent for what had been purchased. For things that I needed, I either begged the superintendent or paid out of pocket. Mostly, paid out of pocket. In particular, I could not buy through the school unless the vendor would accept a purchase order, which for some types of thing, reduced the number of vendors to 0.
posted by plinth at 6:10 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


I have friends who teach in my town, and of course I get to know our local teachers. The extent to which they simply don't have the tools to execute the curricula is kind of amazing.

We are friends with a mother & daughter pair of elementary school teachers, who some of my kids had at various times. When the mom retired, she passed on to her daughter the chairs (or desks and chairs?) that she and a partner teacher -- long since bought out -- had purchased years before. This mad me terribly sad: it's not like a craftsman who had accumulated a lifetime of well-worn tools, each selected for a particular use, turning them over to his apprentice, but instead more like a tired soldier offering his foxhole to a new recruit as he heads for some R&R.

I get a list of supplies every fall from many teachers of things they need us to buy. In the middle school, my kids often receive extra credit for bringing in tissues or paper towels. It's just completely bogus.

At least handing out Chromebooks to every student should cut down on the amount of paper needed to photocopy handouts. *facepalm*
posted by wenestvedt at 6:10 AM on August 27, 2015 [4 favorites]


pracowity: ...do you ever try getting...and local businesses to come up with donations?

Wait, is this a different approach from the parents just stealing office supplies for their kids' teachers?

Seriously, though, I think it would be a big wake-up call to the community if a lot of local businesses started receiving letter that reveal the real extent to which teachers are missing resources. (Whether that would drive a reform in budgeting or just make people attack teacher salaries, I am not willing to consider on a day so sunny and clear.)
posted by wenestvedt at 6:13 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


It has ever been thus, at least in my lifetime. My mother was a teacher, and my sister is now a teacher. Gifts to them for birthdays and Christmas were always stuff like gift cards to the local teacher's supply store. She hits the dollar store every summer for supplies because there are invariably families who can't afford all the stuff the kids are expected to bring with them to school. But the need for supplies draws in more than just the teacher, it draws in the surrounding family as well; I have lost more books to the classroom because my sister thinks the kids might like them. My sister has called me loads of times asking for sheet music for choir, or for me to pick something up for her that she needs for her classroom. She's done it to my mom, too, who is now retired. The need is literally never-ending.

And the most frustrating thing of all? The stealing. At the end of the school year, the teachers are supposed to return any school-supplied items to the resource room for inventory check and for redistribution the next year. Huge swathes of that stuff doesn't get returned, and there is poaching of resources among teachers. There's so few resources, they are hoarded like gold, and teachers are known to steal from one another.

That's what it's like to teach school right now.
posted by LN at 6:15 AM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


Donations are funny in my town. You might have something that a particular classroom or teacher needs, but you can't just say, "here, take this." or "Let me buy that for you." There is a process which, as far as I can tell, gets in the way of your intent to ensure that a teacher has what s/he needs. I think it's intent is to prevent a parent from buying grades/influence, but that's like saying you're angling for a reward from a drowning person by throwing a life ring.
posted by plinth at 6:20 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


No. This is what a B.C. classroom looks like without stuff bought by teachers.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:22 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


There's so few resources, they are hoarded like gold...

Mrs. Smaugstein, an enormous, ancient teacher living in the Basement Teachers' Lounge which none may enter rises from her slumber upon her hoard to reveal her underside made impenetrable with an armor-plating of chalkboard erasers, colored pencils and oak tag.
posted by griphus at 6:22 AM on August 27, 2015 [18 favorites]


My wife teaches 7 years old in a state school in the UK. At her previous school (also a state school) there was more or less zero budget for the classroom. She wasn't allowed to ask for (or accept) donations from parents as it was divisive, the pupils talked about who gave what and not all parents could afford (or wanted) to donate.

So she ended up spending somewhere in the region of £1000 (~$1500) a year of her (post tax) salary on the classroom. She spent this because she cares deeply about the type of environment she is providing for the children. But some of the stuff she bought was basic supplies (big boxes of pencils, glues etc) and frankly it was scandalous that these were only provided in limited quantities by the school. If you ran out of certain materials then the kids just skipped that activity until the next financial cycle, or you bought them yourself.

They opened an outdoor sensory garden area to help with children that had emotional control issues. This was a great help, but it only existed because some local business donated materials and my wife's parents are keen gardeners.

There was also an undercurrent of "requirement" that she spend /some/ money (but probably not as much as she did) because without a certain level of classroom she couldn't meet her annual review goals. And if she didn't meet that she didn't get to keep some of her salary of the next year as it was technically a discretionary award.

We recently moved areas and the new school has sensible classroom budgets in place. Teachers can order what they need to meet the curriculum through the school office. There is a well stocked (and replenished) store of basics. She mentioned wanting some shelves and thinking that the educational supplier was very expensive because they were only for a temporary activity, the head gave her a school credit card and she got them from IKEA. It's a completely different situation.

She took a small pay cut when she moved, but we have more money as a household. It's a noticeable difference.

So why did the first school struggle so much? Shouldn't they all be funded to the same level? It was in a very deprived area and had an unusually high percentage of children that needed additional support to cope. By the time they'd put everything in place they needed to keep those kids safe there wasn't enough money left to actually educate everyone. Schools are given an extra premium for these children, but it isn't enough to cover what they need to do.
posted by samworm at 6:23 AM on August 27, 2015 [8 favorites]


I bet there are people who look at those 'without' pictures and wonder whether their taxes could be lowered even further by selling off some chairs or something.
posted by Poldo at 6:28 AM on August 27, 2015 [13 favorites]


I've spent the past 40 years married to 2 teachers (well, not at the same time)... This expenditure of personal funds has always been the case. I would estimate that the amount spent each year would average out to about $1,500 to $2,000 (yes, they both kept track of those expenditures). This does NOT count donated items that slip in under the radar, it does not factor in the number of extra hours teachers work (a middle school/high school teacher doing a good job of teaching probably puts as many hours in working at home as they do in the classroom).

But, I have to say, the part that offsets all of this is the respect, admiration, and fair compensation and benefits heaped upon teachers by administration, government, boards of education, politicians, and the community...

oh....wait....
posted by HuronBob at 6:32 AM on August 27, 2015 [14 favorites]


My civic club has encouraged local teachers to sign up with Adopt-a-classroom and any teacher who does, we support every year with a donation. They can then get what they need online through the program.

It is a great program, although in a perfect world there wouldn't be a need for it.
posted by domino at 6:37 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


What I'd like to know: teachers have always spent money on the classroom, but have they always been buying pencils? When I was in school, all the classrooms had paper, kleenex and whatever basic art/craft supplies were needed - that is, all of them seemed to have the same stuff. There were teachers who bought more or less fancy supplements - one teacher had bought a lite-brite, but I was never in her room, sadly - and obviously teachers bought different paperbacks and so on. So were teachers then spending more money on "luxury" stuff (like the lite brite) because they didn't have to buy paper and pencils?
posted by Frowner at 6:39 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


The silver lining is Teachers Pay Teachers, where teachers can develop stuff like downloadable flash cards and lesson plans and sell it. Some of the products are bought individually by other teachers, but they do accept purchase orders and some of them are getting bought by the schools.
posted by miyabo at 6:40 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I bet there are people who look at those 'without' pictures and wonder whether their taxes could be lowered even further by selling off some chairs or something.

There are people who think all state schools should be closed. They would sell off the buildings and contents, make all teachers simple at-will employees of private schools, charge all students to attend, and hoist the Fuck You, Got Mine flag out front.
posted by pracowity at 6:44 AM on August 27, 2015 [21 favorites]


First of all, it's a disgrace that teachers have to personally buy supplies for their students.

But in reference to the headline, I am looking at the photos in the article and the top one looks like every elementary classroom I've been in recently: wall-to-wall...stuff. I'm not a minimalist by any means, but I find all these displays to be oppressive. What is the rationale for covering the entire wall with...stuff? Is it supposed to stimulate kids? Inspire them?

I'm not advocating bare walls like a prison cell but tidy up the furniture in the bottom photo and that would be my personal preference. I wonder if anyone else feels that way.

Mods, please delete if this is a derail.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:56 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


I am looking at the photos in the article and the top one looks like every elementary classroom I've been in recently: wall-to-wall...stuff. I'm not a minimalist by any means, but I find all these displays to be oppressive. What is the rationale for covering the entire wall with...stuff? Is it supposed to stimulate kids? Inspire them?

There are pedagogical reasons but when they're judging you on "classroom environment" in the randomly-timed evaluations that affect your pay and job security making your classroom look like the evaluator wants it to look can be an end in itself.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:02 AM on August 27, 2015 [19 favorites]


Do you ever try to get local businesses to donate?

Yes. It doesn't work.

1) Chain retail is usually not allowed to directly donate because there's already a corporate giving strategy.

2) The local community is poor, so we can ask, but they can't afford it. We don't have very much local retail, and what we do have is barely hanging on.

3) It is A LOT of work to get donations. We do have luck getting free pizzas and so forth from restaurants, but never anything durable. And we don't have anything to offer donors but our thanks, and handmade cards, which turns some off-- and remember, we have to ask every year, maybe a few times a year.

We can't ask parents, because the community is poor. We can't hold a bake sale, again because the community is poor such that food security is a problem. We don't get more funding because school funds are tied to property taxes, and the community...is poor. We're fortunate that the government can give us lunches, breakfasts, basic supplies (pencils, paper, basic office supplies, basic art supplies like glue sticks and crayons) because otherwise we'd be sunk. Good luck if you're a sub or hired mid-year, because supplies run out.
posted by blnkfrnk at 7:03 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


It is A LOT of work to get donations. We do have luck getting free pizzas and so forth from restaurants, but never anything durable. And we don't have anything to offer donors but our thanks, and handmade cards, which turns some off-- and remember, we have to ask every year, maybe a few times a year.

Oh yeah, it is tough and exhausting and who has time? Fundraising is an ENTIRE DEPARTMENT in many nonprofits with multiple full-time employees. I wanted to try to get stuff from local businesses but researching and coordinating? When was I going to do that?

It's also something that can be more difficult in communities that are already suffering from a lack of resources where the teachers (former me!) are already stretched thin and unsupported and spending more money on their classrooms because the kids come to school without any supplies.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:07 AM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


What is the rationale for covering the entire wall with...stuff? Is it supposed to stimulate kids? Inspire them?

There's a lot of downtime in the classroom for a lot of kids. You don't get to leave school when you finish your work before anyone else, you have to sit there and wait for the other kids to finish. So what do you do? There needs to be at least a small library of books in the classroom so the kid can pick out something to read and there needs to be a carpet with a chair or some pillows to go and read in (because reading at your desk distracts the slower workers). And they need to be able to do that pretty autonomously because the teacher is busy working with other students. And elementary students don't move classrooms to change subjects. So you need to have materials in the classroom for every subject you teach. And have you ever spent time around young kids? Their attention spans are SHORT. You need to be able to present the material to them in different ways every day or most of them will whine and shut down.

Covering the walls with stuff and having stuff is how you effectively teach kids. You can't stick kids in the same beige box every day and tell them to crack a book and get working on their phonics sheet. Kids just don't work like that. They need variety in order to learn and they need to feel like they're in a safe, inviting space where they belong in order to learn well.

Teachers know this. This is why teachers go out of pocket 100s of dollars per year to cover their classrooms in stuff.
posted by phunniemee at 7:07 AM on August 27, 2015 [32 favorites]


Not to mention the very real problem Mrs. Pterodactyl raises above where if your classroom doesn't conform to some ideal of a welcoming classroom environment you get shit all over by the administration.
posted by phunniemee at 7:09 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


Down here in Texas I regularly hear from teachers that not only do they have to pay for supplemental materials out of pocket but they often get into situations that they don't have enough textbooks at the start of school. Or they have 40 kids in a science class and only desks for 35 and definitely not enough lab equipment. And that's for the well-to-do public schools.

In significant areas of the country teachers are known to actually send home food with their students because honestly the food insecurity is so high that a student might not have anything to eat over the weekend and it's hard to focus on school Monday morning if you haven't eaten in a couple of days.

It's incredible that we have a situation where a valid and effective method of ensuring that schools get higher text scores during exam days is to actually feed the students a good breakfast.
posted by vuron at 7:17 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


I bet there are people who look at those 'without' pictures and wonder whether their taxes could be lowered even further by selling off some chairs or something.
Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I did wonder how effective this campaign would be because like TWinbrook8 I thought some "without" pictures looked like better classrooms than some "with" pictures. I think I would feel overwhelmed in a classroom that looked like it was party all the time. The only decorations in my children's classes were always just (unlaminated) drawings/paintings that the children made, and depending on the class prints of the letters of the alphabet and other simple things like that and that was perfect I thought. At the beginning of the year the classroom looked like on the "without" pictures and then throughout the year it got filled with stuff the children made.

I do agree that teachers buying pencils and basic school supplies is ridiculous, but that's not as easily shown on photographs I guess. As for books, my elementary schools always had one small library for the entire school. It seems so redundant to me to let every class have its own books.
posted by blub at 7:27 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


God damn it Canada and also America

it's not even as though "better than the US at Society" is a particularly high bar or anything
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:29 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


but when they're judging you on "classroom environment"

Ah, I see. Thanks.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:30 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


this is why my sole point of annual giving is on donorschoose.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:34 AM on August 27, 2015


Covering the walls with stuff

Except a) there really is no measurement of success or effectiveness, and b) the wall-coverings are generally set at the beginning of the year and rarely change. There's a flurry of activity in the days before the school year starts, and then eight months later, the same alphabet chart is in the same place. If the teacher doesn't change rooms, they'll just roll right forward with much of what they have.

Of course, that could be budget and time, where teachers would love to redecorate constantly, and simply can't. But, that is just not the experience that I see. The wall coverings are more about a school's culture and a teacher's sense of place than anything else.

Go back several decades (Google "50s classroom"), and classrooms were not decorated nearly to the extent that they generally are now. And somehow those students didn't turn out to be blithering idiots.

The strangest thing to me is that each teacher's classroom, even if they are teaching the same grade, are decorated and organized completely differently. You'd think that if there was something that really proved to be effective, it would be copied.

My wife was a teacher and I have two children in the public school system.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:35 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


One of the reasons - that is, I got a teaching certificate and have done some teaching but I'm not a career teacher - for all the stuff is that some of it is made by the students. You put up pictures they draw or crafts that you've worked on as a class to help students feel recognized and valued.

I cast my mind back to when I was little and yeah, a lot of the classrooms had stuff (maybe not so much as some of these, but then I was little before Chinese manufacturing really came on line) and I don't remember minding or even thinking that it was a lot. "Minimalism, no distractions" is, IME, an adult preference. My dad always used to go on (back in the eighties and nineties before it was fashionable) about how much he preferred mid-century minimalism to all the Euro-tchochkes that my grandparents and my mother tended to prefer and I always thought he was nuts. Why wouldn't you want to be surrounded by lots of stuff?
posted by Frowner at 7:36 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm the son of a teacher, and I married a teacher, and I'll ditto everyone else's experiences with teachers paying out of pocket. My mom taught in elementary school, and my wife teaches high school. The only difference is that my mom had a lot more seasonal class decorations she bought herself, though she reused most of those items year after year.

My wife has taught at schools where there weren't enough desks for all her students, so a few had to sit in seats and work at awkward tables at the side of rooms, and it was fairly common for basic supplies that the school did supply would run out towards the end of the year (blank paper for copies was the most notable). And when the copier did have paper but didn't work, my wife or I would run copies of tests at our own expense.

Some teachers use DonorsChoose, but I've mostly seen this used for bigger items, from fancy projectors to 3D printers, not basic school supplies.


wenestvedt: At least handing out Chromebooks to every student should cut down on the amount of paper needed to photocopy handouts. *facepalm*

I'm not sure on the specifics, but I believe schools often get grants or have money earmarked for technology, as if that would somehow magically make schools work better in the face of the issues raised here. My wife was handed a Mac laptop and an iPod when she started working at her current school, which also has smart boards installed in most classes, all of which she rarely (if ever) uses. Why? Because the students don't score well on the whole, so the district gets money for technology.

At least when you hand kids a tablet that is locked down, you're giving them a creative exercise in bypassing the security features (this was not the biggest issue with L.A. Unified's $1.3 billion iPad program).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


The stuff on the walls is often evidence that a roomful of busy kids have all been doing their own version of the same thing for a lesson, so there are 23 turkeys or 23 valentines or 23 rockets to the moon. You don't learn things like eye-hand coordination and following instructions by watching the teacher do something for you. You make stuff, write stuff, draw stuff, and then... you put it all up on the wall for everyone to admire and learn from, for each child's sense of accomplishment ("I made that!"), and for parents to see when they want to know what their kids have been doing.

But maybe all those activities require 23 of this, 23 of that, and 23 of another thing, and that's just one lesson. You can go through supplies pretty quickly.
posted by pracowity at 7:41 AM on August 27, 2015 [4 favorites]


Down here in Texas I regularly hear from teachers that not only do they have to pay for supplemental materials out of pocket but they often get into situations that they don't have enough textbooks at the start of school. Or they have 40 kids in a science class and only desks for 35 and definitely not enough lab equipment. And that's for the well-to-do public schools.

I feel like I'm reading "Up the Down Staircase," which was published in 1964.
posted by Melismata at 7:44 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have to laugh anymore when people talk about how overpowered teacher's unions are.

I live in a podunk middle of nowhere cow-town, and with a 1 semester class and no other credential, I could be hired as a cop starting at 66,230 dollars per year - they are basically guaranteed employment for life; it's well established that firing a cop is nigh impossible. The starting teacher requires a 4 year degree and extensive licensing and starts at 39,000 - and their contract is renewed every summer.

Meet Brett Berry. Brett is a deputy in the Ramsey County, MN sheriff's department. He makes somewhere in the 95,000 a year range, and earlier this year he was drinking at a Carlton County, MN casino and harassing the waitresses. When he was thrown out by security at 3am, he responded by beating the shit out of his police dog, Boone. The Carlton County cops let the intoxicated deputy drive home.

He was placed on paid administrative leave after being charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty, but was recently reinstated to full time work, and there is no sign that he will face any actual repercussions.

I feel for the teachers. And for the rest of us.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:45 AM on August 27, 2015 [11 favorites]


Donations are funny in my town. You might have something that a particular classroom or teacher needs, but you can't just say, "here, take this." or "Let me buy that for you." There is a process which, as far as I can tell, gets in the way of your intent to ensure that a teacher has what s/he needs. Donations are funny in my town. You might have something that a particular classroom or teacher needs, but you can't just say, "here, take this." or "Let me buy that for you." There is a process which, as far as I can tell, gets in the way of your intent to ensure that a teacher has what s/he needs.

The problem with having parents of Nate things, or school fundraisers, is that schools with the richest kids get the most stuff. And the problem with that isn't just that it advantages the already advantaged. It's also that when those classrooms look just dandy and the kids want for nothing the parents think everything is just fine and there's no need for more funding. The people with the most political influence lose the motivation to exercise it for adequate funding.

So, I'm just fine with a donation system that amounts to "you can donate stuff it money and that stuff or money will be added to the pot and make the pot bigger. Then we'll distribute the pot based in need, not on which parents donated it." In the U.S. where cities are a few blocks wide just to ensure economic homogeneity in the schools, the pot should exist at the state level.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:51 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I bet there are people who look at those 'without' pictures and wonder whether their taxes could be lowered even further by selling off some chairs or something.

....Close.

In some weird fit of civic-minded journalism, I wrote up a paper in college, during a winter break, on the state of the current junior high in my home town. The junior high building - the one I went to - was the same building that was used as the high school when my father was a Freshman; it got closed, but then sometime in the 70's got re-opened as the junior high, and it's the one I went to in the early 80's. By the time I was in college, it was severely overcrowded - people were walling up portions of corridors to create new classrooms, which lead to the bizarre situation in which you had a classroom which had its own private bathroom because that's the part of the hallway they walled up.

The state offered the town a grant to build a new junior high, and we were at a point when the town was going to be voting on it - and there was a very vocal contingent of people opposed to building a new junior high, and the debate was getting contentious.

I interviewed the current superintendent, a couple of current students and their parents, and the head of the town taxpayer's association. The current superintendent pointed out some of the issues with the woefully inadequate building - the fire exits weren't up to code, the whole heating system had to be brought up to code to comply with students who had asthma after another federal ruling, and the only wheelchair ramp lead to the gym - and you got from the gym to the rest of the building via stairs, so that didn't help. The student and teachers also told me about the carpet in the hallways being laid down badly so it couldn't be cleaned without rotting the whole thing.

But the taxpayer's association guy's argument was "but it was the same building I went to high school in and it was just fine then, why isn't it good enough now?" Gentle inquiry yielded the information that the taxpayer guy had been to high school in the 1950's.

Eventually, at the town meeting to discuss the issue, someone else raised the point that there were a number of fire safety violations in the old building as it was, and within a couple years we'd be hit by fire codes and be forced to rebuild at our own expense and pay a fine on top of that. That was the only thing that finally seemed to tip the balance over into "hey, maybe we should take this grant and build a new school now, so we don't have to pay out of pocket and do it later".

So it isn't just that people are thinking to sell off chairs to save money on taxes - it's more like "we didn't have that many chairs when I was there, why are you making me pay for more than you need?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:58 AM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


Teachers: when you can't squeeze sufficient supply money out of tightfisted taxpayers and school boards, do you ever try getting manufacturers, retailers, and local businesses to come up with donations?

I used to have art supply stores and got really pissed off when people wearing a thousand dollars worth of clothes who worked for private schools that charge 7-14k a year came in for donations. We were not making enough to even contemplate sending our kid to any of those schools, so we were rude and nasty.

Sometimes merchandise would arrive cosmetically damaged. We'd call it in and rarely would we be asked to ship it back, so all that went into a box and when the box was full, it went to a school. A public school. Broken pastels are broken pastels, still usable, just not easy to sell when you have perfectly fine ones.

Any of you public school teachers should be aware that many of the manufacturers will send you a "Teacher Box" for free, and send somebody very good at art to talk to the kids and and show them how to use the stuff. You have to schedule this well in advance.

Faber-Castell was the best. Those boxes could keep an art teacher in pig heaven for a school year and the people they sent with the boxes were really good with kids. We got this amazing watercolor guy one year and I will bet that every one of those kid's paintings is still up on the fridge at home, or framed. I was really impressed with what those kids did under his tutelage.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:00 AM on August 27, 2015 [12 favorites]


Sakura was pretty awesome too.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:02 AM on August 27, 2015 [4 favorites]


Teachers: when you can't squeeze sufficient supply money out of tightfisted taxpayers and school boards, do you ever try getting manufacturers, retailers, and local businesses to come up with donations?

I want teachers to teach, not fundraise. I think every teacher in the US should do this and send it out to the parents of their students. With attached receipts for what they spent of their own money.

Teachers are woefully underpaid and education is woefully underfunded; I wouldn't blame them all for going on strike.
posted by emjaybee at 8:03 AM on August 27, 2015 [8 favorites]


My mom was a teacher in a relatively wealthy district, in the special ed department. I kind of cringe inwardly now when I think about how my sister and I made fun of her for being the cheapest person we'd ever met - she was always hustling for free stuff, going to trade shows and grabbing pencils and post it notes from the vendors, taking and fixing up my aunt's ancient furniture, going to library book sales on $1 bag day and filling up bag after bag, etc etc. But all of that stuff ended up in her classroom, and the classrooms of the other teachers. She was like a bargain fairy godmother to a lot of the younger teachers, because even in the fairly wealthy district teachers were expected to provide a lot of their own materials. And even where a lot of this stuff was free/discount, there was a significant time commitment involved, which is still expensive in just a slightly different sense.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:07 AM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


here in nyc there's stuff like fucking LIGHT BULBS on donorschoose. i find the teachers with the most tragic and depressing lists and just buy everything.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:22 AM on August 27, 2015 [11 favorites]


like im pretty sure the annual budget per student in my elementary school was like 12-15k, how the fuck am i supposd to deal with that in any other way than throwing fistfuls of money in karmic panic.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:23 AM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


I feel like I'm reading "Up the Down Staircase," which was published in 1964.

I read this in high school in the late-90s/early-00s and it was so intensely accurate I was shocked to find out it was written in 1964.
posted by griphus at 8:32 AM on August 27, 2015


My wife is a teacher in Ontario. She spends a lot of personal money on classroom supplies, books for her students, posters, teaching aids, etc. Because she has taught several different grades, she has to have supplies that are appropriate for each grade level. As a result, our basement is full of teaching supplies and books for different grade levels. In kindergarten classes, most of the toys and supplies are provided by the classroom teacher as well. Because she teaches at a school which draws from a low-income neighbourhood with a lot of recent immigrants and refugees, the teachers also provide a supply of spare clothes, shoes, and most importantly in our climate, winter outerwear.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:36 AM on August 27, 2015 [4 favorites]


Or they have 40 kids in a science class and only desks for 35 and definitely not enough lab equipment.

HAHAHAHAHA I'm writing to you from TEXTBOOKS HELL right now. Surprise, we thought bilingual science had 15 kids! Turns out there's 40 who showed up today! Does Special Ed need language arts books? We don't know yet, and we don't have enough either way!
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:51 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


I live in BC and have two kids in school. I also have a BEd, and I used to be a teacher. Funding for education is an incredibly complex topic.

Per capita funding has increased, but there is a lot of inequity in terms of how that funding is spent, and the inequity is based on philosophical (eg, "neoliberal') reasons, and also has structural causes.

For example, SD 61 (Greater Victoria School District) just built a new high school in Oak Bay, even though enrollment in SD 61 has either declined or flatlined. But the school needed to be built. And it was net-new funding.

So government is spending money on education, but is it in the right areas?

SD 62 (Sooke) is getting two new high schools. It's a rapidly growing suburb/exurb region, and the old high school (where I once taught) is getting torn down. It was an awful school.

One of the biggest structural challenges is that individual school boards have the autonomy to administer capital budgets. While per capita funding may have remained the same or increased over the past 15 years (since the current neoliberal government came to power), student enrollment has declined as the population as a whole ages, which means revenue has declined.

Some school districts, like SD 61, made tough decisions over the past decade to reduce operational costs by closing schools. Others, like Vancouver School District, did not. Vancouver is a large, politically powerful school district that felt it could stand up to the provincial government. But what we're going to see is a showdown in the coming year, and the province could very well take over that board.

Teachers are highly paid in British Columbia, they have a great pension, and they have a lot of time off. The biggest challenge they face is dealing with so-called special needs students with often severe learning or cognitive disabilities that have been dumped into regular classes with little support for the teacher.

It's a crisis for everyone involved, from the special needs students themselves (obviously) to the teachers to the other students. But we live in an era where we want low taxes (BC residents voted to oppose a VAT that would have provided additional revenue for social programs) but want Cadillac, government-funded healthcare, which eats up 50% of BC's annual budget.

I think my kids' teachers are great, and I supported them during the strike last year by writing to my MLA, the education minister and to the premier.

But I sometimes wish that teachers would acknowledge that *all* professionals work long hours, often for no extra pay. And $2000 covers 2 pairs of dress shoes, 2 suits, and 5 shirts, plus any professional development not covered by one's employer.
posted by Nevin at 8:52 AM on August 27, 2015


blnkfrnk: Do you ever try to get local businesses to donate?

Yep: it was easy.

Our elementary school had lousy playground toys. My wife found a magazine article about making hula-hoops out of Pex tubing, so she called a nearby Lowe's * and they said they would give her whatever she needed. She asked for a 100-foot roll of Pex, eleven connectors, and several rolls of day-glow 3M electrical tape, all in exchange for a note on school letter hear explaining what we wanted and stating that it was for a school. We spent an afternoon building them with the kids' help, it was fun.

And when we asked again three years later, they gave us the whole list again -- same manager, and the same Word doc printed out with a new date. :7) The principal was happy to provide the letter, and the store never blinked.

We also asked a local printer to give us a deal on printing school directories (that we populated and produced), and he was happy to swap a discount for the back cover as ad space. Again, all we had to do was ask. *shrug* Then again, I am a silver-tongued devil who could sell snow to the Eskimos, so maybe that's a difference.

* Come to think of it, that Lowe's is two towns away and across state lines, but they still didn't hesitate.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:04 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


My husband teaches high school in a rural and mostly low-income area. He just emailed that he is putting his back to school shopping list together, so this is very timely. Each year and throughout each year he spends well over the $250.00 deduction amount on his classroom and teaching needs. Folders, paper, pens, pencils, hole punches and endless tissues just to name a few.

and most importantly in our climate, winter outerwear.

In the past he has brought in deodorant, shaving cream and razors for kids who can't afford basic hygeine items at home.
posted by JennyJupiter at 9:06 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


But I agree, blnkfrnk, that not every (business) community can support it, and not every (parents & teachers) community has the time or skill or energy to do it. My SiL is running a garage sale this weekend to raise the money to buy soccer uniforms for her daughter's school, and literally no other parent would volunteer to show up for the afternoon or even donate any goods.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:06 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


On the topic of whether some of these classrooms have too many decorations, yes, there is research that shows that young children can be visually overstimulated by abundant decorations, and that detracts from their learning. But the other commentators are correct--teachers are evaluated on how lively and welcoming their classroom decorations look, and research on the most effective level of visual display is not a factor in those evals. So you spend money on more decorations to get good evaluations so you can keep doing your underpaid job so you can spend money on more supplies next year. It's kind of a cliche that no one would teach if they didn't love it, but it's 98% true.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:19 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


blnkfrnk, that "just in time"/"last second" registration thing is maddening and yet somehow inescapable. I feel for you.

And I feel for all the teachers, in fact: I don't think that teachers should be out there hustling donations in the hours they aren't already teaching, learning, grading, or planning. Or coaching. (Or weeping into pillow.) So we always ask our teachers what we can do, and then get to work on it for them.

My wife enlisted her retired dad as a grant-writer for the elementary school; we have volunteered to do work on the grounds at the middle school; those damn hula hoops (my hands still hurt, and I bet they will need a new batch this spring); and more.

My wife used to go in every damn week to at least one of our kids' grade school classrooms in order to supplement the aides who were in there (since they can only work with their one student), even though she's not a certified educator or anything: just a warm body with patience and some extra attention for the kids.

Ugh, it's a crime.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:20 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


When I have it available, I try and throw some money at DonorsChoose, which is kind of like Kickstarter for local teacher projects. It's not solving the systemic problem, but it helps to see what is happening and needed in your local community and pick some worthwhile projects to donate to.
posted by msbutah at 10:12 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Forgive my ignorance, but how are schools funded in Canada or the UK? In the good old US of A they are funded with local property taxes and some state and federal funds, but primarily property taxes. This is IMHO on the whole unfair and probably illegal under the Constitution's right to equal protection. Rich or poor, urban, small, each area must fund their own schools. So as a result the "rich" cities have better schools. Inner city schools and smaller poor communities suffer underfunded, or in reality because of state set minimums the rest of the public services suffer because a larger portion of taxes goes to schools. Compound that asinine plan with better performing schools receiving more federal funding because...they perform better, and you have a never ending downward spiral for some districts.
posted by Gungho at 10:48 AM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


In Canada, the Provincial Governments are responsible for school funding. In Ontario, the province sets much of the funding for each school based on enrollment, but there are other factors in determining the funding each school receives. Aboriginal schools are funded by the Federal Government.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:04 AM on August 27, 2015


wenestvedt: "Seriously, though, I think it would be a big wake-up call to the community if a lot of local businesses started receiving letter that reveal the real extent to which teachers are missing resources. "

It is not. They know. We have a dedicated foundation that hits them up yearly. They muster up around $10,000 a year for public school supplies and donations to things like field trips.

When the charter school hit them up, they managed $100,000/year commitment with something like $5 million upfront. Because them and all their rich exec buddies were on the board for it, and because the local Chamber of Commerce is vociferously anti-union so a lot of local businesses won't donate to public schools because teachers are unionized. They're not at the charter.

EmpressCallipygos: "Gentle inquiry yielded the information that the taxpayer guy had been to high school in the 1950's."

I had this conversation with a retired superintendent of schools. He complained that when HE was superintendent they'd be able to run the district on $X, and I was like, "Okay, but a) inflation and b) when you were superintendent there were no special ed laws and you just sent kids with walking or breathing problems from polio home to their parents for home school and didn't arse yourselves at all with mental disabilities or delays. Those kids just got expelled."

He's all, "AND WE SHOULD GO BACK TO THAT so we can educate THE GOOD KIDS!"

Okay, dude.

One of the serious, serious problems with education policy and management is that since everyone went to school, everyone has strong opinions about why you're Doing It Wrong. Changing the math curriculum in particular is a clusterfuck because a lot of parents learned math ONE WAY and that is THE WAY and they don't want to have to learn a new way to help their kids on homework and if their kids are struggling it's because the schools are teaching math WRONG.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:15 AM on August 27, 2015 [10 favorites]


Changing the math curriculum in particular is a clusterfuck because a lot of parents learned math ONE WAY and that is THE WAY and they don't want to have to learn a new way to help their kids on homework and if their kids are struggling it's because the schools are teaching math WRONG.

This is very true and extra frustrating because you also get the same people saying "I hate math". Well, sir or madam, do you think it's possible you would hate math less if you had been taught in a different way? But no, it's all simultaneous "I hate math" and "this math curriculum is NOT like how I was taught and it is an OUTRAGE."
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 11:32 AM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


But I sometimes wish that teachers would acknowledge that *all* professionals work long hours, often for no extra pay. And $2000 covers 2 pairs of dress shoes, 2 suits, and 5 shirts, plus any professional development not covered by one's employer.

Definitely, but doesn't everybody have to buy clothes? Few teachers are showing up in sweatpants. Also, how does a teacher salary compare to other professional salaries?
posted by eisforcool at 11:33 AM on August 27, 2015 [6 favorites]


Has it always been like that in Canada? Or is this an example of the influence of the US bleeding across the border?

It's British Columbia. As a transplant from Ontario, this place is weird, man.

When I first moved here, I screwed up on the health plan. Where I grew up, your paycheck had deductions taken of for the federal pension plan and the provincial health care plan. You could look at how much you were spending if you wanted to, but getting health care was never a concern if you were employed or not. I move to BC 10 years ago. Thought it would be the same. Struggled to find steady work for a year or so. A year later I get a letter from MSP (our public health service provider) telling me I owed them hundreds of dollars. Because here you have to pay in explicitly, it's not just deducted, and I suppose if you don't you get no coverage. I've tried to figure out why they do this but the best I could find was that it's to show people that health care costs money and isn't free. WTF?!?

On the topic of schools, my daughter is not in school yet but one of her favorite playgrounds was a grade school nearby. It had 2 play structures. One of them has been removed because it was old, and there was some kind of funding drive to get a new one put in--the sign saying this had a province of BC logo on it, too. 3 months later, no sign of it. I actually walked by the other day and a kid was sitting in dirt where the play structure used to be. I have no idea what's going on but where I grew up, tax revenue did this. Yeah we were underfunded sometimes and a lot of my grade schooling was in "portables" as they called them, but it was always funded provincially and the community wasn't expected to put up money for playgrounds and shit. But yeah, even in Ontario teachers pay out of pocket for certain things for the class.

The biggest challenge they face is dealing with so-called special needs students with often severe learning or cognitive disabilities that have been dumped into regular classes with little support for the teacher.

Yep, I gather this has happened in Ontario, too. I feel terrible for the kids that need special attention because odds are they won't get it this way.
posted by Hoopo at 11:52 AM on August 27, 2015


In Canada, the Provincial Governments are responsible for school funding. In Ontario, the province sets much of the funding for each school based on enrollment, but there are other factors in determining the funding each school receives. Aboriginal schools are funded by the Federal Government.

And it's probably worth adding: Since some provinces are poorer than others but everyone has the right to the same basic services, regardless of where they live, the federal government makes what are called "equalization payments" to the poorer provinces. There's a formula for deciding which provinces are "have" provinces and which are "have not" and the size of transfer payments made by the federal government to the provinces is based on which side of the line provinces fall on. I believe this money is not particularly ear-marked once transfered, but the basic idea is that it should ensure that people in every province get relatively equal quality of healthcare and education.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:31 PM on August 27, 2015


Teaching: The only profession where employees steal supplies from home to take to work. (quote from my middle-school art teacher wife).
posted by Jackson at 12:35 PM on August 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


And $2000 covers 2 pairs of dress shoes, 2 suits, and 5 shirts, plus any professional development not covered by one's employer.

You know what? I have as champagne tastes as anyone, but I have to tell you - either you're working the kind of job where you buy your suits on sale at Banana and you just don't make that much plus you're required to do a lot of professional development on your own dime or else you're making way the hell more than a teacher does - that is, either $2000 is covering cheap clothes and a LOT of professional development and you're working in a job where you only need cheap clothes or it's covering expensive clothes and a little personal development, and if you're absolutely required to kick down $300 for a pair of shoes, you're in a job where you make way more than most teachers. And teachers do pay for much of their professional development, at least around here.
posted by Frowner at 12:37 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


At the start of every school year, there are always articles and think pieces about teachers spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for school supplies.
Threads like this one and the redditgifts thread, for just two small examples.

I never see, though, an explanation as to why teachers feel compelled to spend their own money on basic supplies to do the job.
In any other professional career*, the suggestion that, for example, you would be required to supply your white-board markers for presentations, or printer paper for a report would be laughed off as either a) a prank or b) a symptom of dysfunctional workplace that you should leave post-haste.

Note that I'm not talking about buying a better stapler for the classroom because the issued one is crap, that is understandable, and analogous to a cube dweller buying a $15 USB key because the PO process is too tedious.
If you read the reddit thread, we're talking about teachers buying rulers.

So, my question to teachers, why do you do this?
What is the mindset that stops you from telling parents, "Sorry, we couldn't practice math today because I have no paper for handouts"? Or "Sorry, Miss Classroom Evaluator, there are no posters on the wall because the school won't approve a PO"?

My local teacher's union is always seemingly in negotiations over step increases, or pension contributions, but I've never once seen them negotiating for out-of-pocket expenses. Why not?

I feel like I must be missing some part of this story, but I don't know what is. Enlighten me, please.


* Leaving out trades, where workers tend to accumulate their own personalized set of tools over time.
posted by madajb at 1:35 PM on August 27, 2015


In the middle school, my kids often receive extra credit for bringing in tissues or paper towels.

This is vile on just about every level. "Hey rich(er) kids, let's just plain give you grades for money."
posted by jeather at 2:06 PM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


My local teacher's union is always seemingly in negotiations over step increases, or pension contributions, but I've never once seen them negotiating for out-of-pocket expenses. Why not?

Uh, this....this whole photo series was started because Brtitish Columbia teachers are preparing to go on strike and took all the stuff they paid out of pocket for home as a negotiating tactic. The taking pictures of "here's what the class looks like without my spending money" pictures are a tactic.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:49 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


As for books, my elementary schools always had one small library for the entire school. It seems so redundant to me to let every class have its own books.

I respectfully and strongly disagree--all the research shows that kids need ready access to a big variety of books and other reading materials if they're going to improve their reading skills. The best readers read the most, and they need access to books to allow them to practice their reading. Independent reading time is critical to improving reading skills. Going to the school library once a week (if that often) just isn't going to provide the ready access kids need to books in their own classrooms. Plus--many school libraries are now drastically cutting their hours or are being eliminated altogether due to budget cuts. When I was teaching I easily spent a MINIMUM of $500 every year on adding more books to my classroom library--not textbooks, but books that my students could read on their own.
posted by bookmammal at 7:18 PM on August 27, 2015 [6 favorites]


Thorzdad: "Has it always been like that in Canada?"

In BC pretty much at least back 35 years.

Cool Papa Bell: "the wall-coverings are generally set at the beginning of the year and rarely change."

This isn't my experience with my daughter's classes at all. Sure stuff like the Alphabet at the front doesn't change but everything else seems to get changed regularly.
posted by Mitheral at 7:46 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


What is the mindset that stops you from telling parents, "Sorry, we couldn't practice math today because I have no paper for handouts"? Or "Sorry, Miss Classroom Evaluator, there are no posters on the wall because the school won't approve a PO"?

Because if you don't have paper for handouts, your classes' grades go down, and your standardized test scores go down, and your evaluations go down, and you're fired.
posted by tzikeh at 8:15 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Uh, this....this whole photo series was started because Brtitish Columbia teachers are preparing to go on strike and took all the stuff they paid out of pocket for home as a negotiating tactic. The taking pictures of "here's what the class looks like without my spending money" pictures are a tactic.

Sure, I understand that.
But at least on the BCTF webpage, there is really no mention of "classroom supplies" as a bargaining point that I can find.
There's verbiage about cuts to pensions, unfunded salary increases, health benefits, which are all valuable items to negotiate, but nothing that I can see directly about out-of-pocket costs.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem, just that, at least in my neck of the woods, it's not something that teachers call out specifically as a point of contract negotiation.
posted by madajb at 8:34 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


> "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber" --Robert Fulghum

Robert Fulghum? I've never seen him credited with it before. The earliest I can get it back to is the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, but I don't know who specifically came up with it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:37 PM on August 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


What is the mindset that stops you from telling parents, "Sorry, we couldn't practice math today because I have no paper for handouts"? Or "Sorry, Miss Classroom Evaluator, there are no posters on the wall because the school won't approve a PO"?

Uhhh, because they're TEACHERS? They took a low-paying, high stress job that requires years of schooling and continuing workshops which requires tons of emotional labor, and they didn't do it because "It's a job.". They do it because they love it, they love the kids and they want to see them learn and be excited, to see them progress through the years into adults. To stop doing that work as a negotiation tactic is just contradictory.

My mother's a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher, I grew up in the school an hour early and several hours late everyday, I worked in a school as maintenance for a couple years, I've been pretty much surrounded by teachers my entire life. I think it's horrible that teachers have to spend money out of pocket for basic supplies, but I also don't think increasing budgets is going to make that problem go away. I think it's a feature of people who do that job. When my mom had enough paper and supplies, she bought more books. When she no longer had shelf space for books, she bought more shelves. When there was no more room for shelves, she bought board games and activities for rainy/snowy days. Once she had that, she bought surplus science experiment totes from other districts to pillage for interesting bits. When there's literally no physical object she needs, she gets apps on her ipad to better organize things or to run games. Things break, the cycle continues. I can't imagine a day where my mother, or any teacher I've known, will actually STOP buying things themselves. It's horrible that they often don't have enough basic supplies, and that we can fix, but I don't think teachers will ever stop filling their rooms with things they buy themselves. There's no such thing as a classroom that has enough of everything, it can always be better.
posted by neonrev at 8:42 PM on August 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


As fimbulvetr says, In Canada, the Provincial Governments are responsible for school funding. In Ontario, the province sets much of the funding for each school based on enrollment, but there are other factors in determining the funding each school receives. Aboriginal schools are funded by the Federal Government.

However, I think "underfunded" is more accurate.

Additionally, my understanding is that in some provinces, there are two school systems (Catholic and non-religious) and you can assign your taxes to the one you choose.

In BC, there is no religious school district, but there are private schools that have a religious basis. Private schools did not receive public funding until 1977, and now there are some that do and some that don't.
posted by chapps at 10:02 PM on August 27, 2015


BC teachers are paid about $15K less today than they were in the late 70s, factoring in inflation.

BC teachers had negotiated a contract a decade or so ago. Sign sealed and delivered. The government subsequently tore it up and told them to go screw.

And has screwed them ever harder every few years.

BC teachers spend ever-increasing amounts of their pathetic personal pay to outfit their classes.

In short, BC teachers are idiots. If they had the common sense that god gave a gnat, they'd leave this province for greener pastures.

Such is life in BC. We elect criminals to office. We let them lie to us, we let them steal from us, we let them abuse us. And then we re-elect them.

We deserve everything we get in BC.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:03 PM on August 27, 2015


Yeah, I really wish schools in BC were better funded in some ways and I wish teachers were treated better in some ways, but this is pure PR from the BCTF. Every time they are gearing up for bargaining, they start campaigning in public on a number of different issues, some more sincerely than others, but the actual negotiations tend to be about salary, pensions, and how much they work. They are pretty good at PR.
posted by ssg at 10:07 PM on August 27, 2015


I respectfully and strongly disagree--all the research shows that kids need ready access to a big variety of books and other reading materials if they're going to improve their reading skills.
Sorry, I didn't mean "small library" as in "very few books", it's just that our primary schools tend to be small, so the libraries are relatively small, when compared to for example a public library. There are enough books for the students to read. For the smaller children there are library hours, but they're not strictly enforced, if a child doesn't have any books left they can get new ones. I don't know any schools here where teachers buy books for their classrooms and children still improve their reading skills.
posted by blub at 1:20 AM on August 28, 2015


madajb: "it's not something that teachers call out specifically as a point of contract negotiation."

Which just means they aren't stupid. If they made it an issue it would allow the Province to deflect any other compensation increase to "classroom supplies". An earmark that is certain to be reduced and or redirected to general funding in the same way the legal tax for legal aid is being used for general revenue. Asking for a classroom supply earmark is asking for a pay cut.
posted by Mitheral at 5:08 AM on August 28, 2015


But I sometimes wish that teachers would acknowledge that *all* professionals work long hours, often for no extra pay.

I've worked in a lot of different fields, but I've never had a job that was as physically draining as teaching was. This includes, but is not limited to, factory work, farm work, and food service. And I was pretty much the laziest teacher ever, and didn't take stuff home to grade or spend my own money on supplies. Still, it's like being on stage for 6-8 hours a day, and then there's the part where you're sick all the time for at least the first couple of years on the job.

Working extra hours in an office job isn't even on the same scale of exhausting. Nobody's counting on me to look friendly and welcoming when I'm staring at a monitor. That said, damned if I'll do unpaid overtime or work a job without adequate bathroom breaks ever again if I can help it. Everyone deserves fair pay for hours worked and good working conditions, and if the teachers who've actually managed to stick with their profession are only concerned with arguing their own case, there's no good reason the rest of us shouldn't organize and argue our own.

Health care professionals have many of the same problems with working conditions that teachers do, but you usually don't see them having to buy their own saline bags, disinfectant, and paper towels.
posted by asperity at 9:44 AM on August 28, 2015 [8 favorites]


But I sometimes wish that teachers would acknowledge that *all* professionals work long hours, often for no extra pay.

yeah, but the base salary for most other professionals is usually way higher and they don't have to buy their own pencils or stapler on top of it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:45 AM on August 28, 2015 [6 favorites]


Plus, it's not right that anyone should be made to work long hours without extra pay. If one group protests unfair working conditions, you shouldn't respond by saying "but I have to deal with that too", you should respond by supporting them and protesting the conditions in your own profession as well.

Solidarity, not division.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:36 PM on August 28, 2015 [10 favorites]


But I sometimes wish that teachers would acknowledge that *all* professionals work long hours, often for no extra pay.

I work full time as network administrator. It's a strenuous job at times, but overall, not as bad as when I used to deliver shingles or sling sheetrock for a living.

I picked up a side gig teaching a 4 credit class at the local community college. It's a network and server administration class and I really enjoy teaching it.

I don't know how teachers can do that full time. I'm teaching a class of self selected adults who want to be in class and are motivated to learn, and it is exhausting. Plus, it is far more work to come up with lesson plans and discussion points and whatnot than I think anyone really appreciates.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it and it's a nice diversion from my usual work, but teaching is much harder than office work by a long shot. I'm only doing it because I like it, because the pay also sucks.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 12:43 PM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


(Pogo, the IT people I know who are adjuncts all suffer their first term -- but every subsequent term they can reuse a lot of the lesson plans and slides and such, which reduces the demands somewhat.)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:18 PM on August 28, 2015


I'm a middle school teacher. I taught high school for a decade before moving down to 6th grade. I now work in a school district that is better funded than most.

I hate TeachersPayTeachers, frankly. For one, it promotes the kind of thinking that leads teachers to lock their filing cabinets so no other teacher can steal their precious, precious worksheets. I know teachers like that, and most of the time, what they're locking up isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Beyond that, teaching is part of the idea economy. I teach my students to be creative, based on the ideas and texts we've studied. Their ideas get better when they are shared. My ideas get better when they're shared.

Finally, the idea that teachers should have to supplement their income by selling lessons is reprehensible. Why don't we just pay teachers enough that something like TPT would have no need to exist?

On the subject of the FPP, I was thinking that I don't actually spend much money in my classroom now because our basic supplies are all covered, and have been in my last two school districts.

But then I remembered.

I self-fund going to several major conferences a year (in the summer, it's always across the country), and while there, give my time to present multiple times. I buy materials for my students to make their own puppet. Last year, each student made two, which was about 100 puppets throughout the year. This year, my team decided to add in puppets too. That means 210 puppets. While materials cost less than $1 per puppet, that's still a lot of money. Add in the green screen, the professional quality camera equipment, and the video editing and graphics software I use in my classroom...and that all adds up.

I don't have to buy basic supplies, which is awesome. And because we're 1:1 with laptops, I don't even need the copy machine for 99% of the year. But I easily surpass the tax credit I'm allowed each year.

Now, I also get pretty substantial gifts from students and their families, so that offsets the out-of-pocket cost a bit. And one of my students won a major writing contest that earned me some money for my classroom last year.

But I don't have time to solicit donations. I did one DonorsChoose and found the amount of time it took unmanageable for me. I put in a lot of hours, and as one of the teacher leaders on campus this year, my time is incredibly precious.

Could I do less, both financially and with time investment? Yes.

But when I see the puppet videos my students make, it's worth it. When I see a student so terrified she whispered her first presentation (with only me and her mom in the room) transform into a confident public speaker because of the voice her puppet created in her, it's worth it. When I see the oddball kids who are not as popular start fitting in through their use of puppets, it's worth it.

It's not fair, but it's totally worth it.
posted by guster4lovers at 11:29 PM on August 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


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