Back to School Supplies, Part 1 (or, The Many Uses of Whiteboard Cleaner)

Back to school shopping used to be one of my favorite activities. The Hiltunen household would scour the ads for the best deals on Sunday morning, then set aside one full day that week for stocking up at Staples or Target or Office Max, or maybe all of the above. We’d come home with plastic bags bulging with fresh notebooks, brand new colored pens, crisp notebook paper, and a color-coded array of folders and binders (maybe that part was just me). I’d spend hours organizing, labeling, and admiring my loot, all the while dreaming of how I'd arrange my backpack for that first day of the new school year. (There were so many compartments in my bright yellow L.L. Bean--where would I put my pencil pouch? What about my house keys? Should I put my binders in the biggest compartment and my folders in the smaller one?) Oh, and is it too early to start color coding my assignment notebook?

Recently, though, back to school shopping has taken on a new light, and not necessarily a good one. Teaching has almost sucked this joy straight out of me. It’s become a little more stressful, knowing that the pack of brand-new, beautiful red checking pencils will somehow end up in the hands of an angsty pre-teen, who will use it to scratch out the name of his or her 7th grade ex-significant other from his or her homework folder. Or that the 100-sheet pack of college-ruled paper will be gone in 2 days, when students play the “well, if you don’t give me paper then I’m not doing any work” card, and I frantically throw a handful of paper at them to contain the chaos (what would you do?). Or, my favorite, when my whiteboard cleaner becomes everything from a desk cleaner to air freshener to a Neosporin substitute. I still get that giddy feeling when I leave the store with all new supplies. But now, as I’m pulling away in my car, I’m also imagining all the ways my stuff will be misused, and all of the money I’ll spend to replace it in a matter of weeks.

You’d think in a school where kids have so little, they’d treasure what they are given. Shouldn’t they be so grateful for that brand new neon yellow pencil topper eraser you just gave them? Shouldn’t they cherish the group work boxes, stocked with Crayola (brand name!) markers and crayons, tape, stickies, and safety scissors? Shouldn’t tears well up in their eyes when you place their very own pristine “tablet” (notebook) on their desk?

Maybe. But usually it goes something more like this: markers uncapped, sticky notes unstuck from each other and stuck to random body parts (hopefully not with the words “kick me” written on them), tape used as a makeshift lint roller in the middle of note-taking…and those beautiful tablets? Ripped, torn, and on the floor with curse words written all over them. (But those erasers, man? They’re like GOLD! They stay on pencils for ages. No kid would dare lose his pencil if it has a pencil topper eraser on the end!)

Thoughts in my head: “Oh YES! This means I get to make another trip to Walmart! I get to dip into my grocery fund to buy more markers and pencils and my third electric pencil sharpener, and then wait in line for 20 minutes at the world’s slowest store (251 Premier Boulevard, Roanoke Rapids)!” Sarcasm, sheer sarcasm. Did we catch that?

I think, however, that I may have found the cure for my supplies woes this year. It has two parts. I’ll start with part 1 for today.

Part 1: Trick students into thinking all school supplies are like gold (not just pencil topper erasers)

Copies are a precious commodity at school (another tragedy for any teacher). So last year, whenever I would pass out a worksheet or guided notes, I would make sure the students understood just how precious that paper was. I made them cradle the paper, rock it back and forth, and lightly stroke it as if it were a “wittle baby” (picture it, it happened). They’d laugh, but I also saw them protecting it from danger later on, and rarely saw the “wittle babies” on the floor. I now know the power of persuasion, and you better believe I will be treating everything in my classroom like a prized possession. Whiteboard markers will be used gently, and you don’t even WANT to know what happens to them if they end up uncapped.. Calculators that fall on the floor will explode. Want to use my markers? Okay, but first you need to salute to Crayola, to prove your respect for the coloring utensils (that may be taking it a bit far, but you catch my drift?). In short, one of my goals for this year is to teach my students to respect and appreciate the tools you are given, not only because they may be taken away, but also out of desire to be a good citizen.

I’ll save part 2 for tomorrow. But know that YOU, my friend, are a very vital part of part 2, and through it I will unleash powers in you that you didn’t even know you had.