Staplers: The Bane of My Existence

I have been through nine staplers this year. No kidding, nine. This isn’t one of those times when I exaggerate a tiny bit and say there were 85 million people at the REI anniversary sale – nine staplers have actually begun and ended their pathetic little lives in our class.

Office supplies do not last long in my class. One very disturbed little girl (who is now in a counseling-enriched special day class, thank God) had a habit of throwing staplers at the wall – and she could THROW. Other kids have tried to be helpful and put staples in the stapler, but managed to break the stapler in the process. The office wouldn’t give me any more staplers after the first four (can’t say I blame them!), so the others were all bought with my own money.

Pencil sharpeners are also a problem. The school provided an old-fashioned wall-mounted sharpener which immediately broke. They also gave us one electric sharpener halfway through the year – again, broke very quickly. I have bought three electric sharpeners on my own (since September) and the only one that is still functional is the one on my desk that kids don’t touch. I don’t know what they do to the sharpeners – they don’t seem to be treating them that badly (except for the one time Alan sharpened a crayon in the electric sharpener).

You’d think I’d learn after the first couple of electric sharpeners that I had to replace. But you can’t really run a classroom sans pencil sharpeners. I tried getting individual sharpeners but they seem to lose themselves. Also, at the end of each day, the floor is covered with pencil shavings, which makes me crazy and never gets all the way cleaned up.

So, if anyone has any ideas on either how to deal with the logistics of pencils (I despise pencils, I really really do) or how to extend the lives of the sharpeners, please let me know, as I would really appreciate some guidance! Donations of sharpeners and staplers also graciously accepted.

A future post will be about the vanishing scissors and the runaway tape. Or perhaps the markers that seem to take their own tops off, just to be dry out and be spiteful.

Comments

A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class.

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other prison but I still

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea

Bronwyn Harris, Author

Search This Blog