Teachers Told to Dumpster Dive to Build Class Library

[proud2BlibKansan]

It was during the monthly department meeting – you know, the one where they take away a prep period, promising to have you out in fifteen minutes because they know how busy you are, but then some colleague or other has to go and ask a question or make a comment that gets the meeting off track and you end up sitting there in the library (which really should be renamed the “Meeting Room” because there is no librarian and the only time anyone ever goes into it is for some meeting or other) for the whole period anyway, and you can’t make up the time because you got slapped with a coverage on your other prep and therefore must add the work you planned to do today onto the pile that already sits on your desk.

You all with me here? Of course you are.

So were discussing the latest mandate from the Ivory Tower: That ALL students must read a self-selected book from the leveled classroom library for the first twenty minutes of every Literacy block. Seems like an easy enough task, right? However, there is one small glitch when it comes to my classroom library.

I don’t have one.

My classroom was not an actual classroom last year, and therefore did not come with the usual amenities that one generally finds in a classroom, like, say, a classroom library. I made this clear to my Assistant Principal when the little “How to Level Your Library” memo came around, and was told that she would see what she could do, and that was the end of it. So now this directive comes from on high and a couple of us who are without classroom libraries ask what we should do. Know what the response was? We were told to scour garage sales, Freecycle, and public library used book sales for cheap or free books and to realize that the books would need to be replenished regularly because, “You know if you lend four books, you will only maybe get two back and that’s just how it goes”. Then, it was actually suggested, by an administrator, that we should “even consider driving around the neighborhood the night before trash pickup and see if anyone is throwing away any books”. So apparently, dumpster-diving has been slipped into our list of professional responsibilities while we weren’t looking!

more . . . http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/10/teachers-told-to-dumpster-dive-to-build.html

[LWolf]

1. That meeting is so eerily familiar I could feel my neck muscles tightening.

Not the classroom library part; the colleague who had to chime in to keep us there for the whole block.

The classroom library? I've got a better classroom library I've ever seen anywhere else. And it's all mine. If someone told me to level it, I'd take it home and await the district's providing a leveled library to every class.

I'd be waiting a long time.

If my district told me I HAD to provide a classroom library, leveled or not, on my own, I'd be on the phone with a rep the same day.

[sweetapogee]

2. my spouse

is a reading teacher, has been for almost 20 years. Every time we see a book at the appropriate grade school level of reading we buy it, many are like 5 or 10 cents, some free even, and we have 1000s of books as a result. Good books too!

Before I began student teaching it was impressed upon me that I would have to become part pack rat because that is what teachers do.

And actually it is fun to collect them.

[kickysnana]

3. There is a difference between volunteering and being enslaved. n/t

[Xithras]

32. Agreed. I practically had to force my wife to stop spending money on her classroom.

As the district cut back on their budget, the teachers were expected to buy more and more of the supplies. It got to the point where it was doing actual financial damage to us, and I had to tell my wife that her desire to help the kids in her classroom were harming her own children. She claimed that it was neccesary to buy the books and supplies in order to be a good teacher, so I had to ask her "Do you want to be a good teacher, or a good mother? Because we don't have the money for you to be both." She got the point, and hasn't bought anything more expensive than plain paper and crayons in a few years now.

If the district cuts the classroom budget, it's not a teachers job to compensate for it. Just do the best job you can with the resources you're given.

[valerief]

4. Are you for real?

[sweetapogee]

17. no

I made it up to get you all excited.:sarcasm:

[msanthrope]

11. I know what you mean--I had thousands and thousands of children's books from when I taught.

I just collected them. I finally gave them all to a parent-cooperative charter school here in Philly.

[WinkyDink]

30. And your school district spends its budget on what, then, if not books?

[SharonAnn]

34. My sister is married to a retired "pack rat" teacher and it's a constant problem.

Right now the garage is (again) so full that one bay is full of "stuff" and it's creeping over to the other bay. The garage attic is now stashed full (again) and the beams are starting to bow. Maybe it's a good thing that they can't park in the garage.

In the house, it's just as bad. The laundry room was almost completely blocked, three refrigerators were so full you couldn't find anything, and the pantry was the same.

I was there for three weeks in May after he had quad bypass surgery and I just decided to start throwing stuff out and giving stuff away. Almost empty salad dressing bottles filling the top shelf of the fridge. All more than 5 years old, some almost 10 years old. Stuff in the freezer that was 5 years old (and more). Lots of partial cans in the refrigerator with stuff old and dried out inside. Way outdated stuff in the pantry, too.

I filled the big garbage can every trash day (2 per week) and sometimes had an extra trash can. I made several trips to Goodwill with extra "stuff" and got the laundry room useable again. I got electrical and plumbing repairs done by hiring professionals. He was going to "get to them" but was always too busy.

Of course, he may never let me in his house again. What's funny is that I have a hard time throwing stuff out, too. But this level of hoarding was ridiculous.

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. do you watch "hoarders"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

46. Not really the point of the OP

[Erose999]

5. So they expect you to buy these materials with your own money too, right?

Thats what gets me, is that on top of not being paid enough, teachers are expected to fork over a portion of their salaries for materials too. Even my friend who was a student teacher and barely made anything at all at it was expected to provide her own materials out of pocket.

[LeftyMom]

6. I'm not sure this is news.

My kid sister has boxes of books squirreled away for her future classroom in my dad's garage. She hasn't even got her first teaching job yet, but she's been hoarding books since her first year of college. All of my kid's outgrown books go in there, from Hop on Pop to Harry Potter and the something something, since she's not sure yet what grade level she'll get.

Growing up I remember helping my best friend's mom, who taught second grade and won all sorts of awards, tape construction paper covers onto books from some bookstore's discards. I don't think she fished them out of the dumpster, I think some employee called and asked her to come get them so they wouldn't go to waste. She taught in a poor neighborhood and many of her students lived in homes where there was nothing to read (at least in English,) so she never minded lending out books that didn't come back, it meant they were being read. She went through a lot of books, and keeping an eye out for more wasn't the bare minimum of her job, but it was part of making sure her students kept reading when they left school.

edit: I could build an impressive collection of children's books in one weekend, for less than the cost of the bookshelf to store them. Children's books are DIRT CHEAP at thrift stores.

[WinkyDink]

26. Did you miss the word "DUMPSTER"??? And if Thrift-store books are so DIRT CHEAP,

let the School Board buy them.

[SomethingFishy]

41. Yeah it's not news that the education system is fucked.

A school that cannot afford books? Seriously? Yeah this isn't news it's a fucking crime.

[Codeine]

7. What's a "leveled" library,

and why the FUCK are teachers expected to provide such materials on their own dime?

[msanthrope]

9. A library that contains books appropriately marked as to their 'level' so that you

can distribute to students based on that metric. It takes a great deal of time to do, if you aren't using books already marked.

Even if you have a generous budget, you still use some of your own money to get a few things. Then you use the federal tax credit to claim what you've paid. When I taught, I was always building my personal library of kid's books, and my classroom library.

At the start of every school year on DU, we get threads from parents complaining about their kids' supply lists. I always laugh.

[Codeine]

10. I just got one of those lists for the first time for my stepdaughter's 2nd grade class.

It all seemed reasonable beyond the highlighter markers. I hate those damned things. :D

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Books organized by reading levels

And it takes FOREVER to do that.

[WinkyDink]

27. It is clearly a typically stupid Administrative term learned in an equally stupid Ed. grad course.

Been there, done that, know whereof I speak.

[msanthrope]

36. Your reply indicates a certain ignorance of how reading is taught.

A leveled library is merely one that helps students find the right book for their skill level, thus reinforcing their competency, and making books more accessible.

That's not grad school. That should be learned on the college level.

[Aerows]

8. Every time I think the state of education can't get worse

I hear a story like this. My sister is a first grade teacher. The things she does to make sure the kids she teaches actually learn something at school makes me respect her more each day.

This demonizing of teachers makes me ill, when they contribute so much to the lives of our children.

[msanthrope]

12. Well, the OP's a bit overhyped, IMHO. Nobody was told to 'dumpster dive.'

Books are your tools. If you are a teacher, you bring your books. They go with you.

A lawyer? They bring their books, practice manuals, etc...

A doctor? They bring their favorite tools, too.

Professionals bring what they need to their jobs.

When you are learning to teach, you learn how teachers build their own libraries. Checking 'curb alerts' on freecycle and craiglist is one way, going to used bookstores, tag sales, and the like is another.

Why do teachers amass such collections? Well, in my case, it was so that I could freely give books to my students to take home--knowing and HOPING that the books might remain there. In some cases, these are the only books in the home. I also sent home books for younger siblings.

It would not have been right for me to use school money for those things. But teachers who love teaching love to see books go to families that need them.

What I find astonishing, frankly, is that a teacher needed to be instructed on HOW or WHY to build a library. That person shouldn't be certified, IMHO, if they haven't figured that out yet.

[WinkyDink]

28. School budgets are for, you know, BOOKS.

[msanthrope]

35. School budgets are not for the books you keep (and take with you) or give away.

What I am astonished at in this thread is that there is somehow something controversial about a supposed professional building their own library of books, or tools.

I am astonished that it doesn't seem to be common practice to give books to children who need them.

Of course you should be able to rely on the school for appropriate basics, but the school is not responsible for building your tools of the trade. You are, as is any professional.

[valerief]

18. I agree. I guess our tax dollars are only good for bombs and bailouts.

To hell with brains and books! :grr:

[Aerows]

24. Brains and books should be our first priority

When we stop investing in education, we stop investing in our own future.

[NNN0LHI]

13. When attending school I remember receiving a thin paper catalog to choose our own books from

There would be a short synopsis describing all the books and there were hundreds to choose from. We had to pay for them ourselves but they were really cheap. Must have been cost. Anyone else remember getting those catalogs in the classroom?

Choosing our own books and being able to keep them after we read them was half the fun. I still have the paperbacks I ordered when I was a kid. Saving them for my grand kids.

I think it was National Scholastics who ran the program but I could be wrong about this. Did they do away with that program?

Don

[msanthrope]

14. It is Scholastics, and they still exist! I used to send home the catalogs, and

now, my daughter and I order from them.

[NNN0LHI]

16. Thank you. The day our books were delivered was always my favorite day of school

I bet it was our teachers too? First thing every kid did was pick out the one book they had really been waiting for and start reading. Everything would go quiet in the classroom. About that time the teacher would appoint a class monitor and head for the teachers smoking lounge for a break.

Very happy to hear that Scholastics is still around.

Don

[msanthrope]

42. And if you order online, they give the kid's teacher free books. (You have to use the right code.)

I still remember the day I got 'Island of the Blue Dolphins.'

[Arkansas Granny]

33. Didn't they also do the Weekly Reader and Current Events?

I used to love it when those came out every week.

I'm traveling far in the wayback machine to dredge up this memory.

[TuxedoKat]

19. Yes

There were always so many I wanted but my parents rarely ordered any for us (I don't know why, as they could have afforded it) and I don't know what happened to the few they did order. I wish I could remember some of the titles too. I never see them at thrift stores either. Alot of them were really interesting too, such as dealing with important issues of the times (racism, drugs, etc.). Would love to read some of them again -- like opening a personal time capsule.

[NNN0LHI]

20. Native Son was one of my favorites

[TuxedoKat]

21. Wow

I never read that one, but if I had I would have definitely remembered it! (I just looked it up on Wikipedia). There was one I read in a similar vein about a promising young AA girl who gets addicted to heroin and then shoplifts and becomes a prostitute to support her drug habit. Made a big impression on me at the time, 4th or 5th grade. I read Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, not when I was a child though. I've forgotten alot of it, I should read it again and some of his other works too.

Re those Scholastic book order forms they send out nowadays mentioned above -- ny daughter brings them home but I rarely see anything worth ordering and nothing like the kinds of books that were available when I was a kid. They mostly have books about tv or sports celebrities, comedy, fantasy, and some science/informational type books. Most of them don't even look very well-written and there are rarely any books with gritty realism or that would make you think. I wonder why -- no not really, I think I know the answer. :( Wonder if I dare broach that subject with my child's teacher... I have amassed a pretty good home library though, of most of the books I enjoyed as a kid for my kids.

[TuxedoKat]

22. Here you go...

Hey, look what I just found (inspired by your remarks, I thought let's see what the internet has to say), maybe I can find some titles of those old books I read after all! Looks like I need to look on Ebay too... don't know why I didn't think of that before.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jl-incrowd/sets/72157601903080963/

http://www.zimbio.com/member/LilaTovCocktail/articles/3429610/Cheap+easy+Scholastic+Books+covers+60s+70s

[WinkyDink]

29. Not quite the OP's topic.

[BreweryYardRat]

23. The administrator who suggested trash-diving has no business educating children.

Fundamentalists might throw out books that are worth reading, but they're the only ones. If a book's even halfway decent, most people trade it to a used bookstore, or give it to a friend, or donate it to a thrift store.

The vast majority of books found in the trash deserve to be there.

I have put one book in the recycling bin so far this year.

That book was one of the most homophobic wastes of paper I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, and if I hadn't lost the receipt, I'd have returned it to the bookstore. (The homophobia was not listed on the dust jacket, needless to say.)

[WinkyDink]

25. "You all with me here?" BEEN THERE TOO OFTEN! This story should be sent to the local newspaper.

[WinkyDink]

31. Who ARE some of you, defending this, claiming to have bought "1,000's" of books for students?

Claiming to have been told this is expected?

Purportedly seeing nothing out of line with the Administrators' "suggestions" in the OP's post?

[MadHound]

37. A lot of people now have this mindset

After all, teachers supplying their classes' needs out of their own pocket has gone on for so long that it has become the norm, and it is now taken for granted that members of one of the worst paying professions in this country will provide financial assistance to their employers.

That's why you see people defending this and people who see nothing wrong with this directive to dumpster dive.

[msanthrope]

39. Teachers who wanted students to have books in their homes.

Of course teachers should not have to pay for textbooks, and other basic school materials. I wish every teacher had an adequate budget for at least essentials.

But when you are a teacher, you sometimes send home books that might be the only books in the home. So you aren't too adamant about them coming back. And if you can send home books for the younger siblings, you do that, too. I wish it was the norm that teachers got a supplemental budget to use for discretionary stuff like that, but I don't think they ever have.

I also had a pretty large library of books that I used in the classroom to aid in teaching. I bought 'em, they helped me teach, I took 'em with me. I viewed them as tools of my trade, like a construction worker views a favorite hammer that the boss didn't pay for, or like I view my Westlaw access now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. Its insane, isn't it?

I guess I was lucky. Back when leveled libraries first came into our world, I had a wonderful principal. She got a grant and we went to a local bookstore and went shopping.

No way would I have bought the library myself. And I've been known to buy things for my classroom. But an ENTIRE library? That's insane.

[dkf]

38. Funny I've bought books for my sister to stock up her library for her students.

And I'm not even a teacher.

When she first started, I would look for this stuff at the library book sales or goodwill, since I was avid reader back in the day. I often found great deals...10 cents and 25 cents. It was kind of exciting. And it wasn't worth asking her to pay me back. A dollar here a dollar there didn't break me.

[mainstreetonce]

43. A tip

Besides buying books at cheap sales, ask students to bring in books and swap them. If you give students book club sale notices, like those from Scholastic, you can accumulate points and get free books. Tell parents you don't want holiday gifts, you want books.

I spent a lot of money on a classroom library, but it was one expense I didn't mind.

[BrendaBrick]

44. Another tip:

DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need.

Here's how it works: public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class.

Then, you can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires you. Once a project reaches its funding goal, we deliver the materials to the school.

You'll get photos of your project taking place, a thank-you letter from the teacher, and a cost report showing how each dollar was spent. If you give over $50, you'll also receive hand-written thank-you letters from the students.

At DonorsChoose.org, you can give as little as $1 and get the same level of choice, transparency, and feedback that is traditionally reserved for someone who gives millions. We call it citizen philanthropy.

http://www.donorschoose.org/about

(Found out about it on the Colbert Report. Colbert is on the Board of Directors.)

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. Well I mind

We shouldn't have to spend our own money EVER on materials for our classrooms - including books.

I can't believe the people, even teachers, defending this practice in this thread.

[handmade34]

48. wow, I am with you

teachers should not have to spend their money to buy books for students (although I was known to do it). I would be outraged at the suggestion (for the teacher to go to garage sales and through people's trash) from the administrator in your post!

although I am not opposed to picking up books at garage sales or such... to have a superior suggest it is outrageous...