By Mordechai Schmutter

As someone who’s been a student, a parent, and a teacher, I think we should do something to change these school-supplies lists. The school sends home massive lists that haven’t really been changed since the first year the school was in operation, and then after you buy everything on it, the teacher walks in on the first day of school and sends home a list of things you need to buy by the second day.

Wait. So then who wrote the first list?

I don’t know if I should be the one complaining, because I’m a teacher (of high-school English). On the one hand, all I tell my students to bring is something to write with, something to write on, and something to keep it in. But on the other hand, I’m not the best teacher, as is evidenced by the fact that, most days, half my students have nothing to write with, and the other half are writing in the margins of the paper I just handed them.

But some of these teachers want items that are way too specific. For example, a lot of teachers require specific-colored folders. This way, the teacher can just say, “Get out your green folders,” and everyone will, except the colorblind kids. That makes sense. Because, otherwise, the teacher would have to say, “Get out your reading folders,” which takes a lot longer. Or the kids will ask, “Which ones are the reading folders?”

“I don’t know; read.”

So you have to go from store to store, hunting for specific colors, which is so much easier than the teacher telling you to just buy any color folder and then writing “READING” on it in big letters.

Or the teacher says she wants a composition notebook. I write compositions for a living, and I never use a composition notebook. Because when you’re doing freestyle writing, you want something with no margins and short pages that you can’t rip out without ruining the integrity of the notebook. And why are the books camouflaged? Are you trying to lose them?

And then some teachers want things that aren’t even legally considered school supplies. Why do they need Ziploc bags? I think the teacher’s just putting his groceries on the list.

And then there are tissues. Between the limudei kodesh and limudei chol lists, each of my kids has to bring in at least two boxes of tissues. They need Hebrew tissues and English tissues. Do kids really go through two boxes each? 460 tissues? I don’t think my son needs that many. He doesn’t even blow his nose. He just keeps sniffling until he’s specifically reminded that tissues exist.

And why are tissues even something we have to send in, but paper towels are free? Why don’t we have to send in toilet paper? Who decides where to draw the line?

And then there are the normal things, such as pencils, that we have to buy in abnormal amounts. Every year my wife buys a new electric pencil sharpener for the house, and every year it dies. Do you know why? Because of how many pencils she has to sharpen in September. We got a list one year that said that my son had to bring in 72 pencils. My wife sharpened and labeled 72 pencils, thinking, “This is ridiculous. Are they eating the pencils?”

Possibly. The ones that made it home at the end of the year had teeth marks.

Meanwhile, I kept telling her it was a typo, and that he actually needed 7 #2 pencils.

Why so many pencils? To be honest with you, I think that every time a kid comes in and says he doesn’t have school supplies, the teacher adds another number to the pencil list for the next year.

What kindergartener needs 36 pencils?

Well, in case they lose some of them.

Of course they’re going to lose some of them. You hand a kid three dozen of anything and he’ll lose some. Give him one! I know my kid is going to lose his yarmulke sometimes, but I send him to school with one. I don’t put 36 yarmulkes on his head at the beginning of the year and hope for the best.

Also, according to the list, the teachers want pencils with erasers at the end and then they want more erasers that don’t have pencils attached. I’ve never successfully erased anything with one of those big pink erasers. But I guess it makes sense on some level. The pencil is only about 2% eraser. It should be 50/50, no?

And they ask for too much of everything. The first-graders in my kids’ school need a pair of safety scissors for the mornings and two for the afternoons. Why do you need two pairs? In case you glue one shut? I’m more likely to do that in the mornings.

And then every teacher starts making decisions for the other teachers. One teacher asks for a loose-leaf so you can reserve one section for his subject. The next teacher wants his own single-subject notebook. The next teacher asks for a five-subject notebook so you can have one section for his subject. The next teacher wants you to bring in a soft-cover loose-leaf so you can–what? Fold it up and put it in your pocket?

My son had a rebbe last year who required one loose-leaf that he could use to keep his taitch sheets in at home.

Great. You think we’re actually doing that? No. I have one loose-leaf sitting at home for ten months, and I periodically ask, “Why isn’t this at school?”

“That’s the home one.”

“Oh. I didn’t require that. I asked for a plaid folder.”

Why are there plaid folders? School’s not nerdy enough?

And they don’t even teach the kids how to use half the supplies. I’ve never once had a teacher that said, “OK, everyone, take out your reinforcements.”

“Oh. I used all of them to make smiley faces on my desk. They’re already out.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t know how to use them. It’s March. I’ve had these since September.”

You have to bring in everything in September, including a Pesach notebook, but most of it doesn’t get used until later.

Like every school says, “Send in a protractor.” The kids use it for about a week, and it’s never the first week of school. It’s sometime in March. The teacher’s like, “Remember those protractors that everyone brought in at the beginning of the year?”

And everyone’s like, “No.”

And then there are the things the kids don’t seem to need at all. I brought a highlighter to yeshiva every year and did not use it once, except to color my sneakers when I was bored, and I got 90s all through school. Should I have used it on the textbooks we had to give back? Or to highlight my notes while I was writing so I knew which parts are important? If I’m writing it, it’s important.

But someone’s putting it on the list, right?

Well, it’s clearly not the teacher. It’s the school. Think about it: There are five parallel classes and the school is sending you one list. What do you think is happening? At best, they probably ask each teacher what they need and then put them all on the same list. That’s why your kid needs six times as many pencils as you’ve ever used in your life. They’re adding together each teacher’s 23 pencils. And they figure a lot of the kids are switching classrooms in the middle of the day so they’re probably losing pencils anyway. Every kid is just running through the hallway, trailing pencils behind him.

So it’s really the school itself putting this list together–not the teacher–because they don’t want you to have to run out at the last minute once they decide which teachers are getting which kids, and anyway they still have to hire at least one teacher per grade the day before school. What do you want them to do? Send home no list at all and let the teacher send it the first night so you have no time to get everything and the stores are crowded with people who specifically do everything at the last minute because that’s what they want their kids to learn about doing school assignments?

But what’s the teacher supposed to do? Just tell you to bring in the basics in September and then, as he needs things, send home notes asking you to send them in? Parents love that at random times during the year.

So what are their options?

Maybe the teacher should send home lists the first day, but with dates posted next to each item so you know how long you have. That way you know what they want, and you don’t feel nickeled and dimed later. And you can also timeshare items such as protractors between all your kids. And the teacher can also–instead of asking for massive amounts of pencils up front–write something like, “30 pencils a month.”

“That’s it?”

Then at the end of every month, we can ask our kid, “How many pencils do you have left from last month?” And he’ll say, “Three!” And you can go, “Yay!” and give him a small reward. And then you’ll send him with 27.

Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of five books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com.

 

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