Tuesday, October 1, 2013

No Trappers -- Please!

I'm conflicted every year when school starts. Part of me can't wait to get my kids out the door, because their boredom after three months of doing absolutely nothing is manifest in their supine position on the floor: arms at their sides, books in hand, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling, drool running out the sides of their mouths. When I remind them that they're doing exactly what they asked to do over the summer, and that there are plenty of other things we could be doing, their gaze focuses on me for a brief second, and then they return to reading. Most of me, though, misses them when they go to school. Terribly.

There's no such conflict, however, about that end-of-summer ritual, the annual school supply shopping frenzy. I'm just glad it's over. If I were smart, like my friend Krista, I'd get online and order everything from Amazon, and a bunch of high-quality school supplies would arrive in neatly packed boxes at my door. Instead, my frugality (and my husband) demands that I scour the Sunday ads and go from store to store, trying to pick up the cheapest school supplies possible. Perhaps this is why, a month into the new school year, Sam's homework folder has already ripped in two. Those one-cent folders from Office Depot just aren't all they're cracked up to be!

As with most other facets of today's public education, like lunchtime (just enough time to shove dessert in), standardized testing (constant), and the schedule (jam-packed but remarkably sedentary), the process of acquiring school supplies has changed over the years. My parents bought very little, if any, school supplies. Minneapolis Public Schools provided everything we needed back then, and we got to keep everything, or at least borrow things. Unfortunately, today, there are few things that schools will loan to students. And I'm afraid I know why: my sister never returned the clarinet issued to her by Roosevelt Senior High when she graduated in 1979. Of course, she claims that she's still borrowing that clarinet, and that she's planning on returning it just as soon as she's done with it. I suggested that she return it to the old band room as a way to commemorate her upcoming 35th high-school reunion. Her high-school band teacher, if he's still alive, might finally feel a sense of closure from the gesture.

Whether my sister returns the long-lost clarinet or not, the point is that people who abused the generosity of public schools ruined it for the rest of us. I was forced to shell out for Sam's trombone, and let me tell you, I intend to get my money's worth. That boy will be playing that thing until his cheeks are like Dizzy Gillespie's.

Of course, band instruments aren't technically school supplies, and if they were, they'd be at the high end of the school-supply cost spectrum. But the rest of the items add up, both in cost and in the amount of frustration involved in buying them.  I wish I could find the people who created the school supply list for my kids' school (which we'll call Evergreen Elementary), but no one will own up to it.  And if you look through the supply list for the various grades, you can see why.  There doesn't appear to be any logic behind the school supply requirements, unless you're muscle-bound, obsessed with glue and in possession of a constantly regenerating forest.

Take the first-grade supply list, for example. The celebration when my youngest child, Lily, finished first grade rivaled any high school graduation, because I never again had to watch her haul a thick binder stuffed with empty folders and manila envelopes to and from school. I'm sure the teachers had good intentions for that binder; perhaps they thought it would help control the number of excuses for lost homework (although "I lost it in my massive binder" seemed like a reasonable excuse, if you ask me).  But after watching Lily drag home her heavy backpack like a ball and chain every day, I'd flip through each and every folder and envelope and laminated page of outdated math instructions in that binder to find that everything was empty. Oh, there may have been a math worksheet once in a while, and maybe a few spelling words, but nothing that warranted a binder that weighed more than Lily herself.  It took up the great majority of space in her backpack, too. It was tough to squeeze that binder in with all the other items Evergreen School required of her, like her Obama Administration-approved lunch and snack, her gallon of purified spring water, her tub of hand sanitizer, container of sanitizing wipes, bleach pen, organic cotton sweater, all-natural gym shoes, boots, and snowpants (it is Minnesota, after all). Although she never complained about the weight of the backpack, It was difficult to watch her hobble along like a six-year-old Hunchback of Notre Dame. Since then, I noticed that the first-grade supply list has been modified to specify "Large backpack -10x14." Yet, in order to fit everything, the requirement should really be "Mountain climbing backpack, preferably Everest size - 500 x 500."

Out of all the school supply requirements on the kids' list, glue may be the most curious.  At Evergreen School, kindergarten, first, and second graders are required to have glue sticks. Third graders only need white glue.  Fourth graders need both glue and glue sticks. And in fifth and sixth grade, they need just glue sticks again. After careful consideration, Sam determined that the glue requirements are a metaphor for life. You're just learning to use your hands when you're young; therefore, glue sticks are a better option. You get to use liquid glue when you're at the peak of your vitality and therefore at the lowest risk of spilling it. In old age, you lose control of your faculties and have to go back to glue sticks again. I say that's as good an explanation as any. I have my own particular theory about third grade, the one year that several bottles of liquid white glue are required: decoupage. They have to have something to fill that Everest backpack from first grade, and I think an old dresser would fit nicely. Plus, our old dresser would look sharp covered with various pictures of One Direction pasted on with white school glue.

Some parents worry about having every item exactly as it's listed on the school supply list. I was like that too, until I realized that just because something is on the list doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be used. About 30 percent of the supplies you fought for at Target at the end of the summer will come right back to you at the beginning of next summer, like an old war buddy returning home. Just put it in the drawer with all the other old buddies that came home last year and that you forgot about when you needed school supplies this year. You can also probably add all the notebooks that you sent to school that come home with one or two pages filled in out of 70. When your kids graduate from high school, you can open up your own paper-supply store to help pay for college.

Many of today's children, besides being mouthy and lazy, are apparently dehydrated. Therefore, they must have water with them at all times in elementary school. This idea is perpetuated by the media.  Just this morning I saw a local fitness guru on TV pushing water to parents. "Sometimes kids will go an entire school day without drinking water!" The perky personal trainer said with alarm, as if she was announcing that kids go all day without clothes. Well, when they don't have gym and they stand around during their 15-minute recess, they probably don't need to have a bottle of water within reach at every moment. A novel idea would be to a) become thirsty and b) go get a drink from that relic of old, the drinking fountain.  (They just have to remember to apply sanitizer to the spout first.)

My kids are off to a good start at school, even with their cheap school supplies in tow. One thing they don't have though, is a Trapper Keeper. Something must have happened in the fifth grade once with a Trapper Keeper. Maybe someone got injured by the zipper, or perhaps someone was caught carrying something illicit in their Trapper, like a dreidel or a set of Klick-Klacks or a copy of And Tango Makes Three. Whatever the reason, on the fifth-grade school supply list, there's an emphatic "No Trappers--Please!"

So the kids won't have a Trapper Keeper like I did in fifth grade.  Either that, or Evergreen School wants you to stop trying to catch that raccoon that hides out on the playground at night.  Please!

2 comments:

  1. Ha! I saw this posted on Jenny Atz's comments on FB so I read your post. I was laughing out loud. I have to admit to calling the 1st grade teachers this year while I was at Target, because I couldn't find the right things on "the list". I went 2 weeks before school and everything was all sold out!

    In all actuality-- the 3 ring binders don't fit in the kids desks in 5th grade... I think. When I taught 5th grade-- it was on the list from years past, and it didn't bother me, so I just left it. That line seriously made me laugh out loud. I'm still giggling about AND TANGO MAKES THREE. Do kids today even know what a trapper is? I'll let you know how the infamous binder is:) So far Frankie is very excited about it--hoping her enthusiasm stays--because I will surely forget to check it.

    Anna Zbacnik--librarian of "Evergreen"

    PS--I hate glue sticks. I would have wanted glue bottles.
    PSS-- The teachers make the list. Each grade gets to decide what the kids need.
    PSSS-- Now I'm in trouble--I let out the secrets of school.

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  2. Hang onto that Binder, cause it is Required in Middle School. Kids only carry around binders to every class, ney gym; they are not allowed to carry their back packs. In HS, it all changes-kids lug their backpacks everywhere cause their lockers are too far away to go to between classes.

    And buy the expensive calculator the first time...they will eventually need it anyway...

    Brenda Boily-Salmanpour

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