Julia G. Thompson

January 15, 2012

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.—Robert Frost


Doing More with Less

Sometimes the trickledown effects of the economic woes affecting our planet seem more like raging floods rather than little trickles. Pundits blog about how school districts should not allow raises for teachers because we have those luxurious vacations all summer long. Our classrooms are jammed to the point where we have to leap over student book bags in the aisles. Programs are slashed. Prospective educators find it harder and harder to find a teaching position. There is no money for…just about anything.

In spite of these tough times, though, we teachers still go to school each day determined to make a difference in the lives of those students entrusted to our care. As teachers have always done, we somehow figure out ways to make it all work. We teachers make it our business to make sure that the quality of the education that our students receive is not affected adversely by a lack of funds.

In this month’s newsletter, you will find three articles about doing more with less. The first article is a brief list of some ways to change your thinking about what you do in your class so that you can manage supplies and materials better. The second one is a list of fifty ways that teachers can save money. And finally, you will find an excerpt with information about how to manage an overcrowded class.

Article One—Questions to Guide Your Thinking about How to Save Money in Class

1. Which colleagues can I find to share the materials, resources, supplies needed for a unit of study?
2. Where can I find the materials that I need for free? Local government? State department of education resources? Public libraries? Local businesses or civic groups? Nonprofit organizations?
3. What can I feel comfortable asking the families of my students to donate or contribute?
4. What Web resources can help me? (One productive idea is to use “free stuff for teachers and students” as a search term. Dozens of sites appear!)
5. What technology can I use in my classroom to take the place of expensive paper and pencil projects?
6. How can I be sure to make the most of what I already have in my classroom?
7. How can I be proactive about not wasting paper or other supplies?
8. How can I be careful about planning so that I use the resources that I have to the maximum benefit?
9. What can I recycle?
10. How can I make “doing more with less” a positive part of my classroom so that my students can help me?

Article Two—Fifty Ways Teachers Save Money

All of us, even the newest members of our profession, have acquired skills and attitudes that allow us to live a relatively comfortable lifestyle even now when our nation’s economy is in a doleful state. Our expertise in learning to live below our means can be found in this list of 50 of the best strategies that teachers use to save money.

1. We save our change and put it to good use. Teachers have even been known to purchase furniture and other big ticket items with accumulated coins.
2. Teachers know that eating out is more expensive than eating at home.
3. We frequent discount stores such as the ones where everything costs a dollar or less. We have no problem finding great school supplies and those little items we want to use for tangible rewards there.
4. Teachers go to the grocery store with a list. We know that not having a list means spending more money than we can afford to.
5. Teachers pay attention to how much soap we use. If we pour in too much we know that it is just down the drain in waste.
6. Teachers don’t waste anything if we can help it. After all, we are the people who gladly pick up and reuse the pencils that others drop in the hallways.
7. We use cloth instead of paper towels as often as we can.
8. We don’t shop when we are hungry.
9. We know how to haggle to get the best deal on a vehicle. When necessary, we can also haggle politely for other things also.
10. We make our own coffee and take it in a travel mug to work.
11. We make a point of saving water at home and at school. Not only does it save us money, but we are helping keep the planet greener, also.
12. We save on the fuel for our cars by consolidating trips. We plan our errands so that we don’t waste time or fuel.
13. We are the people who spend time calculating our withholding taxes so that we either break even or get a small refund. We also file our own taxes whenever we can.
14. Teachers plan ahead.
15. What the rest of the world does not know about teachers: a large part of our lounge conversation revolves around the deals we just found or the great bargains we know about. Being the friendly helpful people who choose to be in a profession that focuses on others, we share our shopping expertise with our colleagues.
16. We don’t have time to make too many trips to the supermarket. We save money by only going once or maybe twice a week—less often if possible.
17. We buy in bulk whenever we can. For example, we buy a large amount of cereal on sale and divide it into smaller containers so that it stays fresh longer. We are the ones who leave a store with the gigantic boxes of detergent, too.
18. Impulse supermarket buys are not something teachers do—unless those purchases are great deals, of course.
19. We buy supplies and medicines for our pets at these sites: Petcarerx.com and 1800petmeds.com.
20. We are the folks ahead of you in the supermarket checkout line with the well-organized coupon files.
21. We use coupons for a variety of things besides groceries. One great site for this is dealcatcher.com. Another great site is fatwallet.com.
22. Teachers are the ones with a key ring full of those little store reward tags that clerks scan to give us great deals. We then scan our receipts with pleasure to see what we earned or saved as we leave the store.
23. We also are careful to review every receipt to make sure that there are no errors or that there is not a difference between advertised price and what we were charged. Who would have thought that grading papers would have a non-school related purpose?
24. Teachers tend to hang on to receipts so that we can return things without a hassle. We have even established files for this at home.
25. We are the people in the store with our calculators out to determine whether the economy size is really a bargain or not.
26. We often carpool with colleagues even if it means staying later at school or getting there a bit earlier than we would like.
27. We take public transportation if we live in an area where this is available for us.
28. We are the ones driving the small economical cars found in the school parking lot. Teachers have been known to joke about how our students drive better cars than we do.
29. We turn lights off. We turn our computers off. We unplug things. We know that those little actions can add up to big savings over time.
30. We belong to those big discount clubs such as Costco and Sam’s Club.
31. We use cheap calling cards or an Internet phone service such as Skype to save money on long distance calling.
32. We know to the minute what our cell phone usage is each month. Teachers full take advantage of those off peak minutes that are allowed on our phone plans.
33. We make a simple monthly budget and work to stay within our budget. Most of us do this electronically nowadays. A great free site that many teachers use to track and plan how they spend money can be found at mint.com.
34. We try to stay healthy. Teachers know that washing our hands often is much cheaper than paying for a doctor’s visit.
35. Our movie nights happen in the afternoon when matinee prices are cheaper than nighttime rates.
36. Another way we do movie nights is to stay at home with a cheapie movie we rented or, even better, borrowed from the public library.
37. We use a public library to obtain books, newspapers, audio books, and magazines, too.
38. Teachers are also good at learning about free events in the community and in taking advantage of them when we can.
39. Teachers work second jobs. We teach summer school, night school, and tutor. We have been known to sell real estate on the side or work at camps or wait tables or do whatever we can to make a little extra.
40. We spend money on recertification courses and advanced degrees so that our paychecks can be larger eventually.
41. When we shop, teachers check the expiration dates on various products. We know that an out-of-date product is not only a waste of time, but can also be harmful to our health.
42. Few teachers can resist the lure of a garage or yard sale sign. We don’t just purchase for ourselves, however. Many teachers have been known to purchase book bags and even warm coats for our students at these sales.
43. We don’t pay retail if we don’t have to. A great site for this is http://www.retailmenot.com.
44. Online auctions were invented with us in mind.
45. We pack our lunch. On the days we don’t have the teacher’s special (peanut butter sandwich with an apple), we tend to eat leftovers or heat frozen foods we purchased on sale.
46. We are the ones who purchase store brands and generic items.
47. We reuse as much as we can. After all, teachers are the people with closets filled with years of old bulletin board materials.
48. We volunteer at community events so that we can have fun for free while helping out others.
49. When a store has a grand opening, teachers are there. We know that there are often remarkable deals when a store first opens.
50. Teachers, even though we are not paid well, tend to pay our bills on time. By doing this, we make sure that we don’t have to pay any unwelcome fees for late payments.

Article Three--How to Cope with Overcrowded Classrooms—an Excerpt from
Discipline Survival Guide for the Secondary Teacher

“In the recent past, many teachers have had to cope with classes that were just slightly above the recommended size for the grade and subject.

However, today’s widespread and severe budget cuts have made critically overcrowded classrooms that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. As inevitable as overcrowded classes may be, the discipline problems associated with them are not. Overcrowded classes can be managed successfully by those teachers who meet the unique challenges they present.

Even though we know that smaller classes are the preferred option for our students, a positive discipline climate and a pleasant learning environment are possible in overcrowded classes. The following strategies can start you on the way to successfully managing the problems of overcrowded classes.

• Even if you are not easily intimidated, confronting a large group of students who have been crammed into a classroom designed for a much smaller group can be more than a little discouraging. Unless you immediately assume a strong leadership role, you will be so outnumbered by your students that they will be in charge of the class, not you.
• The room arrangement is very important in overcrowded classes. Make sure you have enough desks. Move all equipment that you don’t need to use right away to storage and do whatever else you can to further reduce the claustrophobic effects of clutter in the room.
• Pay careful attention to traffic patterns and student movement. Try to reduce this as much as possible. Teach your students to dispose of trash at the end of class and to sharpen pencils only at the start of class.
• An overcrowded class requires more monitoring than a smaller one. Teach your students that they are to place their book bags under their desks rather than in the aisle to make movement easier.
• A seating chart is an absolute must in an overcrowded class if you want to reduce the amount of off-task behavior. A structured environment will reduce the number of problems you will face.
• Prepare yourself for the noise level. A large class can be a noisy class if you don’t establish some guidelines early in the year with your students to help them control the noise level.
• Be extremely organized and a model of efficiency for your students who could be tempted to use overcrowding as an excuse not to do their best. Keep your personal space in good order and insist that your students leave their area tidy at the end of class. Encourage them to check to make sure their classmates don’t leave personal belongings behind when class is over.
• It is important for you to avoid confusion and the discipline problems caused by failure to return papers promptly. Although it takes longer to grade papers for a large class, your students may feel lost in the crowd if you allow papers to pile up before you give them the feedback that all students need in order to stay focused on learning during class.
• Routines are very important in a large class. Establish and teach them early in the term. Students should be able to predict what they are supposed to do in your class even though there are many students in the room.
• Allow no horseplay. Even though you may be inclined to allow students some leeway in playing around, this is not a good idea when there are too many students in the room. Horseplay in a crowd is wasted time as well as dangerous. Stop it at the first sign it is about to begin.
• Be especially careful in a crowded class to prevent the cheating that can happen because students have to sit close together. Provide a cover sheet and monitor carefully to prevent problems.
• Enlist your students in a sense of togetherness and encourage a spirit of cooperation in solving the problems caused by an overcrowded class. A sense of humor and a positive attitude on your part will set a pleasant tone for your students to model.
• It is important for you to speak with every student each day. Greeting them at the door is a good beginning to solving the problems of having to keep in touch with many students. Make a point to let your students know that you are aware of them as people, not just as faces in a crowd.
• Creating permanent teams of study buddies is a good way to give students a sense of togetherness and connectedness in the midst of the larger group. When students have a few partners to turn to for help and support, they will feel like a part of the class instead of being just one of many.
• Courtesy to each other and to you is especially important in a large class. Teach the importance of courtesy to the students in a large class and insist that they treat everyone with politeness. A large courteous class is much better and easier to deal with than a small rude one.
• Your attitude is the most important factor in coping successfully with the demands of a large class. It’s not the number of students occupying seats in the room, but the careful planning, interesting lessons, and sincere effort to connect with each student each day that will determine the success or failure of the discipline climate in a class.