>Isn't free public education great? Instead of No Child Left
>Behind, soon there will be No Child's Behind Left.
>
>--Ann
I am a public school music teacher and I work very hard. I asked my 5th graders to pay $5 for recorders last year because our school does not have the money to provide them. Since they are a "personal" item (they go in the mouth), I believe it is safest for each child to have his or her own instrument.
I spent about $50 of my own money to make sure that the children who could not afford a recorder had one.
The year before last, when I helped my chorus put together our "Hula Concert", complete with Hawaiian shirts for 65 kids (I went to FIVE separate thrift stores, some more than once), plastic grass for the barefoot hula dancers, and homemade hula skirts, special leis for the poi ball twirlers, the "Hula Honeys" and the "Aloha Soloists", guess who spent $500 of her own money to make the concert a success for every sweet face on that stage?
And guess how many parents from a standing-room-only all-purpose room came up to me afterward to thank me for the job well done? Two.
I am not complaining about the money I spend/spent. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Plus if I leave this school I will definitely take the materials with me. My point is that most teachers do not sit from on high and frivolously demand students buy this and that.
I think it is reasonable to ask each student to donate one box of tissue, that way the class has at least 20-25 (sometimes 30 - yikes!) boxes of tissue to share during the year. Should public school pay for facial tissue? Maybe, but as a teacher who teaches 550 different kids a week, you would be amazed at how fast they clean me out of my personal supply of tissue (about one box a week). I swipe them from the nurse's office now.
BTW, THIS public educator, along with many of my colleagues, thinks NCLB (no child left behind) is a JOKE (underline JOKE).
Best,
Susan L.G.