WHAT are Ticonderoga and why does my 4th grader need 60 of them!

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
really. WTF! these things are expensive! for a damn pencil he is going to lose?

Shit i can get the 60 he needs for under $1. with the other ones its like $15 for 60. WTF

grrr.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,611
10,123
126
I probably have 100 brand new pencils, but have only used pencils I found on the ground for the last couple years. It's a never ending supply of free stuff.

Edit:
btw, you get what you pay for. American and German pencils are superior to the Chinese dollar store crap.
 

chubbyfatazn

Golden Member
Oct 14, 2006
1,617
35
91
..you are right. lol

still that shit is expensive.

and I'm not doing it. fuck the school. get pissy i'm buying the no name brand that is $1 for 60

I'm pretty sure as long as they're #2 pencils they couldn't care less.

I remember I'd bring the same box of #2 pencils with me at the beginning of each school year and just carry on using my mechanicals.
 

GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
25,284
1,997
126
I probably have 100 brand new pencils, but have only used pencils I found on the ground for the last couple years. It's a never ending supply of free stuff.

Edit:
btw, you get what you pay for. American and German pencils are superior to the Chinese dollar store crap.

Do the Chinese pencils write on paper? That's about all anyone can reasonably expect from a pencil, so if the answer is "yes" then they're fine.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,611
10,123
126
Do the Chinese pencils write on paper? That's about all anyone can reasonably expect from a pencil, so if the answer is "yes" then they're fine.

A charcoal briquet writes on paper too. Doesn't mean it's best for the job.
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
I probably have 100 brand new pencils, but have only used pencils I found on the ground for the last couple years. It's a never ending supply of free stuff.

Edit:
btw, you get what you pay for. American and German pencils are superior to the Chinese dollar store crap.

it's a pencil. if you get one that sucks (hey it happens. even with the good brands) you toss it and get another.

I can get a damn box of decent pencils (dixon pencils) for a quarter of the cost of these.
 

maddogchen

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2004
8,903
2
76
Do the Chinese pencils write on paper? That's about all anyone can reasonably expect from a pencil, so if the answer is "yes" then they're fine.

No no no. You gotta find out what scantron devices the school uses. German ones only read German #2 pencils. :p
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
99,549
17,618
126
Do the Chinese pencils write on paper? That's about all anyone can reasonably expect from a pencil, so if the answer is "yes" then they're fine.

But but what about the lead? Won't someone think of the children!
 

balloonshark

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2008
7,061
3,544
136
Cheap pencils are made with gluten and peanuts. They are made by children in sweatshops, cause global warming and contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer. :colbert:
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,290
13,645
126
www.anyf.ca
I had to google what Ticonderoga is. Looks like your kid is going to have a rough year. :p

Ticonderoga was a 169 feet 4 masted clipper displacing 1,089 tons, launched in 1849 at Williamsburg, New York. The Ticonderoga was infamous for its "fever ship" voyage in 1852 from Liverpool to Port Phillip carrying 795 passengers, arriving on the 22nd December 1852. It was a double-decker ship, overcrowded, and with more than its recommended load. Many passengers were small children, as the restrictions on the number of children per family had been lifted. Most came from the Highlands of Scotland but there were other families from Somerset on board.

The ship was not designed well for passenger carrying, sanitary provisions were totally inadequate, and the doctors were soon overwhelmed, and themselves caught typhus. The decks were never swabbed properly and there was no cleaning undertaken below decks; contemporary accounts mention the dreadful smell and the lack of sanitation. Bodies were bundled into mattresses in tens and thrown overboard during the voyage.

100 passengers died during the voyage of what was later determined to have been typhus. When the ship arrived, it was initially moored off Point Nepean and the headland was turned into a quarantine station, where many more passengers died and were buried, rather haphazardly in shallow graves. Later memorials have since been erected by the descendants of survivors.

After the press furor about conditions, double-decker ships were no longer used for emigrants, and the restrictions about the numbers of children allowed were reinstated.

In 1872, the Ticonderoga was wrecked off India.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,601
167
111
www.slatebrookfarm.com
Wtf is a kid going to do with 60 pencils in a school year?? That's one every 3 days. I like the Ticonderogas, but I would have to be an asshole of a teacher to require that brand, let alone 60 of them. Heck, if he was doing nothing but pencil drawings and had art class all day long, he'd have trouble using that many. Buy the kid a 20 pack, and call it good enough.

What I find truly maddening is when multiple teachers require students to follow their own personal organizational methods. 3" three ring binder??! How much freaking paper are you giving that kid? Then, for the next class, it's a 5 subject notebook. Then the teacher who wants those paper binders, color coordinated of course. $150 in back to school supplies, and at the end of the school year, the student throws out the 5 subject notebook that has writing on only about 20 pages. I asked a teacher why he required a 5 subject notebook - "yeah, a [20 cent] 1-subject notebook would be enough, but the kids lose them. They don't lose the 5 subject [$3.59] notebooks, because they're bigger. That's why I require them. " I wish I was making that up.
 
Last edited:

twinrider1

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2003
4,096
64
91
What I don't like is my elementary pools the supplies together within each classroom. So I buy my kid good pencils and they get lumped together with everyone elses? No way. I buy the cheap pencils for him to turn in and some good pencils just for him to keep.
And communal pencils don't teach the kids to take care of their stuff. Just a bad idea.
 
Last edited:

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,611
10,123
126
What I don't like is my elementary pools the supplies together within each classroom. So I buy my kid good pencils and they get lumped together with everyone elses? No way. I buy the cheap pencils for him to turn in and some good pencils just for him to keep.
And communal pencils doesn't teach the kids to take care of their stuff. Just a bad idea.

They're introducing the kids to leftist politics. Good lesson imo.