From the time I was five-years-old when I accompanied my mother on my very first school supply shopping trip, I have been mesmerized by overflowing shelves of notebooks, pencils, pens and crayons. Those of us of a certain age can remember the dusty, musty nose-tickling aroma of those flip-top, pulp paper notebooks with the blue lines, especially those with the dotted line sandwiched by the solid lines. Nirvana! And what could be better than a new box of sharp crayons?
Decades later, my heart still leaps in late July
when the first wave of store circulars welcoming the start of school appear in
the Sunday supplements section of the newspaper. But now, from my side of the retirement
desk, I wistfully push my cart around those alluring stacks of spiral notebooks
and black pens. When I was still in the classroom, only I could use colored
pens. I leaned towards purple or green, depending on my mood, for those few
adolescents who couldn’t seem to understand that they must have something to
write on and something to write with when they came to class. No longer do I
search for supplies that would keep me healthy and sane, except for a much
abbreviated bag of goodies for my home office, but oh, what lifesavers they
were in the classroom!
1. An
extra-large bottle of hand cleanser.
2. Kleenex:
boxes and boxes of Kleenex. Enough said.
(If
you check out my About Me page on my website: www.teachitwrite.com, you will
see these two items front and center on my desk in my old haunt, Room 216).
3. Lysol
spray: for those students who sneezed or coughed on their homework or tests and
then tried to hand the tainted papers to me. Talk about Germ Warfare! When they
did, I smiled, handed them the can and urged them to go into the hall and
de-germ those weapons of mass congestion.
4. A
large bottle of Tylenol: for those mornings when I forlornly realized that the
cut-glass scratchiness in the back of my nose was the result of free-range
germs.
5. A
four-cup Mr. Coffee maker and a file cabinet filled with coffee-flavored coffee
(okay, so I threw in a mocha java) and Constant Comment and Earl Gray tea bags.
6. My
aging, but still working Boom Box, complete with a radio, CD player and tape
deck. Students had to be untethered from
their phones, IPods, etc during school hours but music could set the mood for a
lesson. A little Chopin, on low, worked well during in-class writing sessions.
The songs, “Stars” and “Dog Eat Dog”, from Le
Miserables always jump started lively discussions during our study of The Stranger. And when that first
snowflake fell, we checked the All Weather channel periodically.
7. Sturdy
Paper cups (Hydration rules!) and plates. A strategically planned cultural event (“Parties are frowned
upon in this establishment.” I borrowed this clip from one of my favorite
commercials) could charge up sluggish gray matter and boost camaraderie.
8. Multi-roll
package of Paper Towels. An absolute necessity for cleaning up everything from
Animal Cracker crumbs to water spills to zabaglione (a student took ethnic food
over the top during a Romeo and Juliet
cultural event).
9. Stapler,
scotch tape, paper clips, sharp scissors and glue sticks. Those anchored my
private stash, which students knew better than to raid. Any student who forgot
doomed his or her peers to Lecture #572: Violation of Personal Space, which wasn’t
pretty.
10. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Just like
burgers need fries and eggs need bacon (or sausage), grading that stack of essays
called for the fruit of the cocoa bean…in any form.
This CLASSMART list saved my sanity and my sick days over and over again. And although I, like Elvis, have left the building, I thought it timely to share it with colleagues who still face close encounters with hormonal types. I hope it helps you all to stay healthy during this crazy summer/fall/winter/spring weather.
Happy Teaching,
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