Something To Think About Before You Share That “Great Deal” For Teachers by Kelsey LaMar

Originally posted at: https://www.kelseylamar.com/something-to-think-about-before-you-share-that-great-deal-for-teachers/

About a week ago, I hopped on Facebook and was greeted with about 15 tags on an article about Target. “Wow, this must be good,” I thought.  In the back of my mind, I was imagining grand gestures such as fully funding school supplies for all students. Free gift cards for teacher appreciation. Complimentary Starbucks to celebrate the upcoming school year. I must say I was more than a little underwhelmed to read about a 15% discount on select school supplies.

Now, this is NOT a blog about Target. I love Target as much as any other girl (okay, let’s be honest, probably quite a bit more!) If my husband gave me a free hour to do anything I want, I would probably use it to peruse the aisles of the store at a leisurely pace. What this article is about is that pesky assumption Target is making in the first place.

You see, they know, as do most people in America today, that teachers will soon be hitting the stores to supply their classrooms. They’ll be loading up their carts with paper, glue, and pencils (Ticonderoga of course!). They’ll be buying boxes and boxes of binders and folders. Hand sanitizer and erasers. Colored pencils and white board markers. Some will be buying exercise balls and bean bags for their new flexible seating model. For others it will be new colorful borders for their bulletin boards. Some will be buying white boards for their small groups. But the one thing they all have in common is that the money will come out of their own meager pockets.

As I sat there reading the article, debating whether to share the “great” deal with everyone I knew, I started to get angrier and angrier. When did this become the norm? When did society just start assuming that teachers would buy their own supplies? When did people come to expect it from us because “it’s for the children, after all.”

I’m trying to imagine a world where other professions are treated the same way. Where doctors are asked to pony up the dough for their own scalpels and surgical face masks. It’s for the patients after all!

Or a world in which police officers are asked to open their wallets to buy their own Tasers, bullets, and sirens. “Don’t have them? I guess you’ll have to just make do. But I’m sure you won’t mind buying them. You do care about the safety of the community, don’t you?”

Would the big box stores offer a 15% off discount to firefighters buying their own hoses? Sure, they could make do with garden hoses provided by the government, but if they really cared about saving people’s homes, they’d buy their own.

No! This would never happen. We would never allow it to. So why is it okay to expect it from teachers?

As Americans, we should be utterly ashamed of ourselves. Ashamed that we let it come to this. That we allowed lawmakers to cut more and more from schools every year until they were bled dry. Ashamed that we rob from children to fund tax cuts for the rich. Ashamed that we take to social media every year to complain about the “absurd” school supply lists. Ashamed that we praise stores for offering teachers $0.15 off a box of tissues like it’s the most charitable thing that we’ve ever heard.

I can’t help but wonder when this madness will stop. Will I see the day when large portions of my minuscule salary don’t go towards markers and crayons? When a slight shopping discount is seen as a slap in the face rather than the best news we’ve seen all day? When I’m not taken advantage of year after year simply because I care?

Now, I could sit here and say that the best course of action would be to simply stop buying supplies. If enough teacher’s put their foot down, maybe things would change. People only treat you how you let them, right? However, I know that in a few weeks, I’ll be loading up my cart with supplies, just like millions of other teachers across the country. I’ll stand in line for hours to fight like crazy over free printer paper and rulers. Want to know why?

I’ll do it for the 2/3 of my class who show up with empty backpacks (if they even have a backpack at all). The student’s whose parents work multiple jobs just to put food on the table, and they can’t spare even a pack of pencils. The students who are embarrassed as they watch all of their friends unpack their shiny new binders as they sit empty handed. No student should ever have to feel that way.

I’ll do it for the sake of my targeted small groups. They run so much more smoothly when every student has quick access to a white board and marker to prove their learning.

I’ll do it to help ensure high attendance rates. Access to hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and tissues is important to keep everyone safe and healthy during cold and flu season.

I’ll do it so that 27 nervous students have a warm, welcoming environment to walk into on the first day of school. Colored bins, beautiful backdrops, and organized spaces go a long way in making children feel welcomed and excited for the new school year.

I’ll do it because, it’s for the children after all.

Bio: Kelsey has taught 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th grades in Alaska and Colorado for 11 years. She is passionate about teaching in Title 1 schools, and says there is no place she'd rather be!