Interesting story I heard from a friend...

[magomago]

I think it maybe the fact that some districts are too poor to get all the average supplies for an entire year for the children? Although I can see why they would want parents to foot the bill - its much cheaper to spread the cost around 15 kid's parents then to have the class pay for it.

Although IF they will all be "shared" - it should mention that explicity and define what is wanted exactly. Say "Box a 16 Crayons" rather then be quiet about it and have the child take a pack of 64 only to have them taken away. While I think it is silly in any situation to argue of the "ebbbbbbils" of this, I think not being explicit is wrong on the school's part.

If I ever choose to have kids, I will buy them their own seperate stuff to use at home. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't get something for the school~ because I do understand the merits of learning to share rather than be greedy biatches.

Btw this did happen to me when I was a kid - but instead I was happy because I got to use other stuff I didn't get [whether it was a different brand of crayons that I didn't get...or to try another brand that I hadn't use to check the quality, etc. etc.] , and I was excited that other people were creating pictures with the crayons I got...
Perhaps we should be teaching that to our children instead~

 

[LoganP]

Originally posted by: magomago
I think it maybe the fact that some districts are too poor to get all the average supplies for an entire year for the children? Although I can see why they would want parents to foot the bill - its much cheaper to spread the cost around 15 kid's parents then to have the class pay for it.

Although IF they will all be "shared" - it should mention that explicity and define what is wanted exactly. Say "Box a 16 Crayons" rather then be quiet about it and have the child take a pack of 64 only to have them taken away. While I think it is silly in any situation to argue of the "ebbbbbbils" of this, I think not being explicit is wrong on the school's part.

If I ever choose to have kids, I will buy them their own seperate stuff to use at home. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't get something for the school~ because I do understand the merits of learning to share rather than be greedy biatches.

Btw this did happen to me when I was a kid - but instead I was happy because I got to use other stuff I didn't get [whether it was a different brand of crayons that I didn't get...or to try another brand that I hadn't use to check the quality, etc. etc.] , and I was excited that other people were creating pictures with the crayons I got...
Perhaps we should be teaching that to our children instead~

In my daughters case, they did specify amounts and even name brands. No big woop. She draws so much at home that I should have stock in paper companies.

 

[Rainsford]

I happen to think this is some stupid right-wing fwd: fwd: fwd that makes the rounds here all the time and seems less and less based on reality with each iteration. But even if this DID happen, I'm not sure the "lesson" being taught here is what you think it is.

Kids do not work for things, they are mostly just given thinks like crayons by their parents. Certainly in kindergarten, the amount of "work" done by the child is not worth a box of crayons. Similarly, a child in a poor family could be just as good and NOT get a box of crayons because his "work" only has value to his parents, and his parents can't afford to buy him things for doing simple things he should have been doing anyways. So the "lesson" the kid is being taught my parents aghast at this "socialism" is that your kid deserves things because he's part of a wealthy family. In other words, that life is NOT about working for the things you want, it's about being owed certain things because of the family you were born into. Mommy and daddy might have worked hard to be that family, but the kid has done nothing, and what less do you think will stick?

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
They should tell the welfare moms instead of buying cigarettes with their check they should buy school supplies for their kids.

There are actually poor people out there who work hard to raise kids alone due to dead beat dads. And many of these families have a hard time paying for school supplies. So providing help to them is a good thing.
But there are ways of doing this outside of socialism. Such as the drives for school supplies etc.
Education is the key to success in our society so I have no problem with responsible school spending.

However, there are a lot of other social programs that are to expensive and provide to little results for the money spent on them. And I have BIG problem with the John Edwards of the world who think we can just tax the rich in order to provide the poor with every social ?need? the government can think of.

Uh, I'm pretty sure John Edwards' focus is on health care. And I'm also pretty sure that health care isn't some made up 'need' that poor folks could really do without. Maybe they can fight disease by meditation?

I also don't quite get the fine distinction between "socialism" and "responsible school spending" or "crayon drives". It's all spending communal funds to help people buy things they can't afford for themselves. At what point is it actually "socialism"?

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: senseamp
That's an interesting story. Can I tell it at parties and pretend it was my friend?

Geez, what's with his parents? How did this poor child learn to imagine that things are the source of happiness? How come he doesn't know that the joy of crayons is in drawing with them and that those drawings he will share with others will nevertheless always belong to him as the artist? Why has he not been helped to see that the value of his life is in being? What a sad state of affairs, a poor child who sees himself as an ego to whom things can belong? He will have a hard time dying some day because he will lose all he mistakes as having value. How come this child was never given a chance to learn how much more joy there is in sharing?

But now that he's sick, taking his crayons will only deepen his illness. Now he will hate having to share. The joy of living in part for others will be lost to him. He will become more and more fixated on things.

Honestly, Thank you for taking the time to share this wisdom with us. "I" appreciate it.

 

[child of wonder]

School supply list should read:

"If you can afford to, please bring extra supplies for other children to use."

Then kids get to keep their 64 crayon box and those who are willing will bring some cheapie boxes for the other kids to use.

 

[daveymark]

Republican solution:


have the teacher lie about the class across the hallway harboring crayons to get support from shcoolchildren

have the teacher announce plans for a surge strategy when the invasion fails

have the substitute teacher announce that the cross-classrom insurgency is in its last throes

 

[umbrella39]

Wow, what a sad story. Thankfully, kids grow up and stop worshiping false idols like crayons and start worshiping real idols like Bush

 

[nutxo]

Meh.

Every year we get a long list of what our elementary school age kids have to take in. Then when the kids start school the teachers gather all the supplies from the kids and redistribute them.

It's not a myth in Tacoma, it's just the way they do it here.

 

[Termagant]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

Originally posted by: LoganP
My daughter started kindergarten this year. After getting the list of supplies, I took her to the store so she could pick out the folders she liked, crayons, and so on. On the supply list it ask the parents not to label anything. Fast forward to her first day of school, as we were walking up to her class we noticed a line of plastic bins lined up along the wall next to her door. My daughter didn't understand why we had to put all her stuff into each bin and she whimpered a bit that she wouldn't be able find it later. I ended up spending about $40 for all this stuff not releasing that it was going to be shared between all the students. I'll admit that the selfish person inside me didn't want her to have to share, but I understand why they did it. $40 may not seem like a lot to some, but for some parents, it's more than they can save in a month. Times we live in and all...

They should tell the welfare moms instead of buying cigarettes with their check they should buy school supplies for their kids.

Better yet just take the kids from those moms and send them off to an academy type school with no contact with their pathetic original social environment. This would solve a lot of problems not just related to school supplies.

 

[Arglebargle]

Many teachers I know buy the supplies out of their own pocket. You know, 'cause they want the kids to learn and succeed, and see this as a positive for the future.

 

[yllus]

"Friend" = Hotmail?

 

[BlancoNino]

I don't get chain letters. This story was told to me by a friend who even gave the names of the parents.

Also, why is this hard to belive? Back when I was in school, if we were to bring "snacks", we had to bring some for everyone and teacher said that it was because there are children in the classroom who can't afford snacks and it's not "fair" to them.

Really, though, you guys are overthinking this story. It's a cute story and it does have a lot to do with basic economics: Work for something and then be forced to give it up so that it can be distributed fairly and be collectively owned.

 

[DZip]

The best way to put a stop to this is have the school provide the crayons. Then the kid would not have to work so hard to get something he wants.

 

[episodic]

I don't want to read again to see who said it, but someone suggested the school can't afford to provide it, I disagree.

20 students x over 5000$ per student (alot more in alot of places) = 100,000 dollars. Crayons for 20 kids? 24 packs cost 50 cents at my local dollar store.

 

[her209]

Is this why we send crayons to Iraqi kids?

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
So a 5-year old kid (we'll call him Jimmy) is about to go to kindergarten for the first time. One of the requirements is that the kid is supposed to have a box of crayons as part of his supplies. The kid really wants this box of 64 Crayola Crayons (the best kind, of course), so he acts really good, does everything that's expected (brushes his teeth on time, doesn't fuss about anything, helps pick up things around the house, and other little things). So his parents say "okay, you've been good, we'll buy you that set of 64 Crayola Crayons!".

So Jimmy is all excited and goes to school for the first day. The first thing the teacher asks is for all the kids to pull out their crayons and dump them into a big box. The teacher explains that not all kids can afford crayons, so they have to have a big box for everyone to share. When the box comes around for Jimmy to dump in his nice set of crayons that he worked so hard for, he starts to cry and says "but these are my crayons!", to which the teacher replies "You need to share, stop being so selfish!". So he dumps them in and everyone in the class gets to use the crayons he worked for. After a few weeks, many of them are broken, dull, and completely not taken care of.

Isn't it so nice that the first thing our children learn in public schools is socialism? IIRC, I believe the same thing happened to me, except in 1st or 2nd grade.

The bolded part may as well be the tale of our nation. Thank you socialists.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
I don't get chain letters. This story was told to me by a friend who even gave the names of the parents.

Also, why is this hard to belive? Back when I was in school, if we were to bring "snacks", we had to bring some for everyone and teacher said that it was because there are children in the classroom who can't afford snacks and it's not "fair" to them.

Really, though, you guys are overthinking this story. It's a cute story and it does have a lot to do with basic economics: Work for something and then be forced to give it up so that it can be distributed fairly and be collectively owned.

That's the problem..."cute stories" can't explain "basic economics". This story vastly oversimplifies even basic economic ideas, then you proceed to draw broad conclusions, and THEN bitch when we point out flaws in the story.

You want to explain why socialism is bad, I'm all for it, but argument by analogy is always suspect, and it tends to suggest the arguer has not properly thought through his point.

 

[Orignal Earl]

Next thing you know the poor kids were eating the crayons and then got to stay home for a week
Life ain't fair

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
So a 5-year old kid (we'll call him Jimmy) is about to go to kindergarten for the first time. One of the requirements is that the kid is supposed to have a box of crayons as part of his supplies. The kid really wants this box of 64 Crayola Crayons (the best kind, of course), so he acts really good, does everything that's expected (brushes his teeth on time, doesn't fuss about anything, helps pick up things around the house, and other little things). So his parents say "okay, you've been good, we'll buy you that set of 64 Crayola Crayons!".

So Jimmy is all excited and goes to school for the first day. The first thing the teacher asks is for all the kids to pull out their crayons and dump them into a big box. The teacher explains that not all kids can afford crayons, so they have to have a big box for everyone to share. When the box comes around for Jimmy to dump in his nice set of crayons that he worked so hard for, he starts to cry and says "but these are my crayons!", to which the teacher replies "You need to share, stop being so selfish!". So he dumps them in and everyone in the class gets to use the crayons he worked for. After a few weeks, many of them are broken, dull, and completely not taken care of.

Isn't it so nice that the first thing our children learn in public schools is socialism? IIRC, I believe the same thing happened to me, except in 1st or 2nd grade.

The bolded part may as well be the tale of our nation. Thank you socialists.

Yes, we certainly seem to be headed in that direction :roll:

You guys just aren't happy unless you have some reason to say that the sky is falling, are you? Seriously, what are we up to now, the gay-terrorist-socialist-Mexican-Muslim-whatever threat? I swear, the reason I stopped being a conservative was that it was too hard to keep track of all the people I was supposed to hate.

 

[slash196]

This topic has got to be one of the worst I've ever seen.

 

[sandorski]

Oh teh noes, teh eval sharing!!!!

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: slash196
This topic has got to be one of the worst I've ever seen.

I don't know why. In each post you can see the person who posted, who they really are. The OP is just like a mirror that reflects the person who comments.

 

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
I don't get chain letters. This story was told to me by a friend who even gave the names of the parents.

Also, why is this hard to belive? Back when I was in school, if we were to bring "snacks", we had to bring some for everyone and teacher said that it was because there are children in the classroom who can't afford snacks and it's not "fair" to them.

Really, though, you guys are overthinking this story. It's a cute story and it does have a lot to do with basic economics: Work for something and then be forced to give it up so that it can be distributed fairly and be collectively owned.

That's the problem..."cute stories" can't explain "basic economics". This story vastly oversimplifies even basic economic ideas, then you proceed to draw broad conclusions, and THEN bitch when we point out flaws in the story.

You want to explain why socialism is bad, I'm all for it, but argument by analogy is always suspect, and it tends to suggest the arguer has not properly thought through his point.

I'm oversimplifying because it's a simple story. I would like you to explain to me how it's not an example of socialism.

Classroom = State/Country.
Students = Citizens
Crayons = Economic goods
Teacher = Authority who claims that all citizens shall be entitled to economic
goods, because they are a human need.

All I mentioned was that this was an example of socialism. Don't overthink the analogy.

 

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: slash196
This topic has got to be one of the worst I've ever seen.

If you have a constructive and helpful idea as to what it should read, I will listen with an open mind.