School Supply List

As we move into the throes of another August rush back to school, back to that odd bouquet of spoiled milk that most schools tend to proffer, the preparations begin both on our end and on the end of students and parents everywhere. Never is this more evident than on a trip to Staples.

It's like Christmas, except the lists aren't created by the children, but by the teachers and staff in each school, grade and classroom. An odd reversal, if you think about it, as the students then present their bounty for inspection to the teacher as they arrive in school, often for the first grade of the year. Imagine if we did that with Santa? What pressure!

On a recent trip through the office superstore, I came across a kiosk that had supply lists from every school in our surrounding area in neat little piles for the taking. Just for giggles and grins, I took one. This is what was on it:

Grade 6-8 Social studies

• 1 3ring binder
• 1 composition book
• Colored pencils

Grades 6—8 Science

• 1 1-inch three-ring binder and lined paper
• highlighters
• pencils
• paper reinforcements

Grades 6, 7, 8 Language Arts

• 1 4/6 note card case
• 200 4x6 note cards
• 4 multi-colored highlighters
• Dictionary
• Thesaurus
• Pencil case
• Pens
• Pencils
• 5 2-pocket folders
• CD’s, floppy discs or flash drives
• 1 5-subject notebook-college ruled

Grade 6 Language Arts

• Pocket folder
• 1 3-ring binder

Or

• 1 3-subject notebook
• 1 set highlighters
• Erasable pens
• Non-erasable pens
• Pencils
• 1 2-packs of 3/5 index cards
• index card box

I began to think immediately of how this looked different in some of the schools I read about, like, perhaps, 1:1 schools. Are the students still required to procure the standard items like binders, or, my favorite on this list: paper reinforcements (we had another creative name for these when I was working as a field archaeologist)? As we are currently rethinking our school philosophies, do these lists change? What would they look like in your "school of the future?" What does yours currently look like?

The last few days of mine have been spent working with a group of teachers in a workshop we called Research 2.0. One of the first discussions we had was about research methods and tools. Eric Hoefler (from whose work I borrowed heavily) had come up with this quote and list initially, and it generated some great discussion among my group on Thursday:

"These tools and approaches are now "dead" or "almost dead." If your research plan relies on them, you are probably not adequately preparing your students:

• Floppy Disks
• School computers with extreme filtration
• CD-ROMs
• Note Cards (or other pen-and-paper-only note-taking methods)
• Limiting the number of "online resources"
• Outlawing "citation help" from online services (Who memorizes the MLA handbook, anyway?)
• Basic web searches or school-database-only searches
• Completely independent research methods
• Text-only sources
• Text-only reports

With this in mind, is there a marriage between old method and new method that needs to be created? I am having trouble seeing it right now. Any ideas?

Image Credit: "Back to School Ad" by chishkilauren at Flickr.