Reply to Amazon wishlist from teachers in wealthy schools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the only way to fix this issue is for ALL teachers at a school to make a pact, and only use what the school supplies.

As a former private school teacher, also with a small school provided budget, and a smaller salary, there was a lot of “un-upmanship” within teachers. There were older, married teachers, who worked “to get out of the house”. They had a lot of extra cash, and had the best looking classrooms. Meanwhile, the new teachers, who were struggling to pay off their student debt, and had three other roommates to make ends meet, felt the pressure from admin, fellow teachers, and parents to spend more of their own money.

If the whole school went “bare bones”, parents would loose their minds!  Teachers could just refer them to admin, or even higher ups. But there are always a few teachers who will sacrifice themselves “for the kids”, and they make the others look bad. [/quote]

Oh this is very real. The divide between the teachers with high earning spouses our coming from wealthy families, and regular middle class teachers who are single or have spouses in middle class jobs, can be stark and frustrating, especially if the wealthier teachers make a sport of "beautifying" their rooms and are always one-upping each other.

My current school pools funds and materials for classroom decor and upgrades, which is much better IMO. The PTA provides a ton of classroom items like bulletin boards, floor cushions, a laminating machine for making posters and signs, etc., and they also give teachers an annual stipend for additional classroom items (varies in amount depending on their fundraising, usually at least a couple hundred dollars). Also a few years ago they offered to help any teacher unhappy with the industrial lighting in our classrooms create alternative lighting that would be safe and to code, as we'd had issues with teachers bringing lamps that were not always secure or that would overload sockets. I am migraine prone and hate fluorescent lighting, so this was a huge benefit to me. I wound up moving classrooms since then and my new classroom has a better natural light situation so the alternative lighting is less critical (I can just turn off the overheads most days and the room is still well lit, and we just filter with blinds as needed) but that made such a difference in my well being and I loved how thoughtful it was.

But yes, it's better when teachers have roughly equal resources within the school. It puts far less pressure on young teachers just starting out who haven't amassed a big collection of classroom items yet, and who have to set up their classrooms only with what is available and what they can afford on their salary. Which is ultimately better for the kids so that you have a consistent experience across classrooms.[/quote]

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