The Sunday newspaper is heavy with Back-to-School ads. Children beg for new binders, new notebooks, or new pencil pouches. Even reluctant students swear that this is the year they will finally be successful, if they can just buy that binder with the organizers and a package of smooth clean notebook paper. They negotiate with harried moms over the merits of mechanical pencils versus standard yellow pencils, and turn down backpacks and lunchboxes that will mark them as childish. As local students head back to school this week, parents or grandparents watch the shopping cart fill with dread as dollar signs add up in their minds.
Teachers get in on the game as well. Although most of us are aware that our students’ economic possibilities run the gamut from flat broke to luxurious comfort, the first week of school we send home a list of desired supplies. Depending on the teacher, this can range from a bare-bones minimalist list to an over-the-top multi-page decree. While technically we are not allowed to require anything, every teacher has a wish list of things we hope you provide for your child and things we beg you to leave at home.
We love pencils. “I couldn’t do my homework because I didn’t have a pencil,” are among the saddest words ever uttered in a classroom. While we will give your children pencils as needed, by the end of the school year every pencil in the classroom is either one inch long or has multiple teeth marks in it. We are driven to desperation, picking up pencils we find on the ground outside and surreptitiously forgetting to give back pencils we “borrow.” Of course teachers don’t have favorite students, but if we did, students with extra pencils and willingness to share would be among them.
This love does not extend to mechanical pencils, by the way. After the third lesson interrupted by “Does anyone have .07 lead?” it’s tempting to ban them. “You broke my lead!” become fighting words among classmates mid-year when supplies are running low and tempers are running high.
Pens are fun. We know you love them, especially pink, orange, lime green, or glittery ones. Please remember that after reading more than three essays written in florescent colors, our eyes start spinning around in their sockets, cartoon-style. Pens also nurture our complicated relationship with White-Out. While your child is waiting for carefully dabbed-on liquid corrector to dry, we are still racing through the lesson. When tape-style corrector spools wildly out of its dispenser, tangling students in its slithery tentacles, learning stops.
Most teachers request binders. By this, we do not mean giant tri-fold binders with a wingspan of six feet when fully opened. We mean your grandmother’s binder, made of cardboard covered in plastic and three rings that snap shut with a satisfying “I’m so organized” click. If you know your child will never actually put a piece of paper in a binder except under duress, we prefer folders, lots of them, in different colors. Somehow, between student, teacher, and parent, an organizational system will emerge from chaos.
The request for a backpack comes with a caveat: said backpack must be cleaned periodically. From students’ backpacks, I have pulled notices about the Halloween carnival in April, lists of names for Valentine cards in June, and more squashed moldy sandwiches than I care to count. I still don’t know how an Egg McMuffin can retain its shape after three weeks at the bottom of a backpack, but I’ve witnessed the phenomenon.
New notebooks evoke mixed feelings. If you are the parent of a child who loves new notebooks, who runs a hand over the paper to make sure it is has the correct feel, who has half-filled notebooks under the bed and in every drawer and still begs for new ones, I extend my condolences. This will be an expensive habit, especially when your child discovers leather-bound notebooks later in life. If, however, your child eschews notebooks and prefers to carry his work in his pocket in tiny folded-up squares, we will struggle. His desk will become a repository for loose papers and homework will go missing on a regular basis. Please talk your child into using a notebook, for his sanity and ours.
We know it’s possible that school supplies are out of economic reach for many parents, especially those with numerous children needing new school clothes and shoes. Even if students show up at the door empty-handed, if they come in ready to learn and happy to be present, if they enter with parental blessing and support, we’ll supply the pencils, the paper, and the magic.
