What's upsetting you today?

[lookout123]

Eh, this is just a primer on taxation.

[DanaC]

When it could be a lovely lesson on sharing :P

[lookout123]

nooo, sharing is deciding what to share, with who, when to share it, and in what amount all of my own free will.

taxation is being coerced, however politely, into giving something with no control over the other factors.

each has a proper place, let's just not mix them up.

[DanaC]

But that was my point :P Instead of taking the opportunity to give them a lesson insharing (asking parents to supply their children's kit and inviting them to also bring in a donated item for the class tub) They chose to tax them instead. except no they didn't. Tax would have been if they'd taken one or two things off everybody and let them keep the rest.

They demonstrated highway robbery

[SteveDallas]

What it's really demonstrating is FUCKING STUPIDITY. 84 pencils??!?!?! Eighty Fucking Four?!?!?!? Even if we stipulate that the best way to operate is a communal stash to which everyone contributes, why 84? Why not 75? Or 90, which perhaps makes numerical sense for a 180-day school year? Besides, who decided you had to buy all your supplies for the whole damned year at once?

In addition to the values of communism, it's also teaching the values of conformity. Why should your daughter have a "special" protractor? Or your son a "fun" pencil? They can damned well use a random one out of the bin like everyfuckingbody else. I'm surprised they didn't mandate specific brands, sizes, and colors in order to maintain the proper decorum amongst the classroom. Some years they've asked our kids to buy specific color notebooks and/or folders... I understand it's so they can say... OK, all math stuff goes in your yellow notebook... then for math everybody can just pull out their yellow notebook. But goddamn people, if it gives the kids just a small shred of pleasure during the school day to have a notebook with a puppy, or a baseball player, or a movie star on it.... do you really think your little automatons can't remember which one is the Hannah Montana notebook and which one is the Zack & Cody one???!?!

AARRRHGHGH don't get me started. "What Not To Wear" already came damned close to get me spewing off about mindless conformity in contemporary American society. But I was too damned lazy to put it all down.




I'm sorry. I'm off my meds today, and I spent an hour at Staples last night getting the graph paper Miss Dallas needed for her algebra homework. (Apparently high school supply requirements are less numerous, but given with less advance notice.) I could write more, but I'm getting incoherent and tangential and etc. etc. blah blah.

[DanaC]

It doesn't actually teach the values of communism. It teaches them about power and authority. When they walk into that classroom the teacher is king/queen. S/he decides who uses what and when. It is however very stupid.

[lookout123]

awesome. power and authority are such a turn on.

[DanaC]

Woof!

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

Yesterday was the first day of school. We sent the kids off with all their tons of stupid required supplies. Last night, talking at length about how their day went, our daughter mentioned that about half of the supplies we bought for her were dumped into a communal bin. We got her a nice protractor. Not expensive, but a color she liked. She had labeled it with her name. Into the communal bin it went. Same with the scissors, the 6 boxes of sharpened pencils, etc. etc.

What if we teach her not to be wasteful with her supplies, when the kid in the corner who gets crayons stuck in his nose is constantly breaking pencils? He doesn't care. There are more in the communal bin. We are paying for his pencil breaking habit.

It's a little microcosm of capitalism vs. communism/socialism right there in the school. We're providing pencil welfare and promoting waste.

Oh, and last year, we had to provide something like ten glue sticks. They went into the communal bin too. And then in March or so, we had to provide something like 4 more, because so many of them had dried up from sitting in the communal bin with their caps off. If our kid had her own supply of glue sticks, she would use one until it was gone and then pull out a new one. None would dry out.

Have you said something about it? to the principal?

we're at a hippie/socialist (state) school and there are no lists of stuff to bring. If a classroom is short a particular item, the teacher requests and someone provides. usually too many someones and they all come home with a spare gluestick with which to cause mischief..... bless them....

but we'd sure as hell say something if there were constant requests because the items we were donating were being abused....

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

When it could be a lovely lesson on sharing :P

Yeah, every god damned germ that comes to school.

[ZenGum]

I have some socialist leanings, but I'm also one for schoolds teaching indivudual responsibility.

That stationery policy strikes me as bloody stupid.

And how many goddamn pencils does a kid need????

[limey]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I have some socialist leanings, but I'm also one for schoolds teaching indivudual responsibility.

That stationery policy strikes me as bloody stupid.

And how many goddamn pencils does a kid need????

Zen, you've not being paying attention. A kid needs 84 pencils.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I have some socialist leanings, but I'm also one for schoolds teaching indivudual responsibility.

That stationery policy strikes me as bloody stupid.

And how many goddamn pencils does a kid need????

Snap.
Socialism does not have to equal waste and stupidity.
But it does in this case.

For me, I'm really down about my on-going migraine situaion.
This one has been going on since Sunday evening.
I've been unable to type on the days I've not been here.
Yesterday was particularly bad.
I have not had a single piece of solid food all week, half the water I drink comes back up again, and the precription painkillers I've been given only handle 75% of the pain.

Aside from the worry that it's not actually a migraine (4 DAYS?!) and in fact I am about to die of something, I'm worried about our Big Day Out on Monday. I'm terrified of letting Mum down, promising her the earth and not delivering. I'm going to call the doctors tomorrow and ask for a telephone consultation just to be on the safe side, because we're scheduled to leave at 09.30 Monday morning, so it's kill or cure over the weekend.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by limey

Zen, you've not being paying attention. A kid needs 84 pencils.

touche'!

Sundae: yeah, like actually only carefully and gently.

[Clodfobble]

A kid needs to bring 84 pencils because that dipshit Jethro Redneck takes his pencil home every day and leaves it there, and comes to school without supplies. But the teacher is not at liberty to let him fail for his dipshittedness, because No Child Left Behind says her pay and her job are directly tied to whether Jethro can pass, which he needs a neverending supply of new pencils to do.