Jack Knox
Slightly Skewed
News item: Students in Honolulu are being told to include a four-pack of toilet paper in their back-to-school supplies.
H H H
Really? I thought Hawaiians used palm fronds.
This, we are told, is the new reality: Students subsidizing their cash-starved schools, being asked to buy supplies traditionally provided by the education system.
The New York Times reported the following items demanded of students in Moody, Alabama: two double rolls of paper towels, three packages of Clorox wipes, three boxes of baby wipes, two boxes of garbage bags, liquid soap, Kleenex and Ziplocs.
A school in Seattle asked for Swiffer refills and plastic cutlery. A Texas district put Dixie cups and paper plates on the list. And now, at Honolulu's Pauoa Elementary, a four-pack of toilet paper.
This last item raises questions. Do students take their own toilet paper to the washroom, like West Coast Trail hikers trooping off to the outhouse with Purex in hand? Or perhaps the kids just take turns filling the dispenser, bringing a new meaning to the term "class roll."
But what if one kid brings the gourmet, perfume-infused four-ply and the next buys the bargain brand that could double as 60-grit sandpaper in the woodworking shop? That would be like a potluck dinner where one person brings hand-raised Cornish game hens flavoured with saffron from the garden and another just grabs a bag of Doritos from 7-Eleven.
This downloading is mostly an American phenomenon. Canadian back-to-school flyers do not mirror those in the U.S., which read like cleaning-supply catalogues, hand sanitizer and paper towels mixed in with the Duo-Tangs and graphing calculators.
But can we be far behind? Whether it's because taxes have been cut too much or there's nothing left to tax, B.C. school budgets have been squeezed to the point that parents are now asked to pony up for everything from musical instruments to school bus fees.
It's not cheap sending Junior back to school. Visa estimates the average Canadian will spend $621 on school supplies this year. The median amount spent by B.C. back-to-school shoppers will be $350, same as last year, according to an Ipsos Reid survey released Thursday.
Seems excessive. Back in the olden days, this is what kids brought to school:
A brand new Pink Pearl eraser that, being synonymous with the end of summer, smelled like a condemned man's last meal.
A few Hilroy scribblers, the ones with the map of Canada on the cover (it's still there, except now they've added Nunavut).
A bottle of glue, which allowed the teacher to take the edge off on tough days.
A compass that was probably supposed to be used for something other than perforating classmates.
Two HB pencils, one for each nostril.
Now the class lists call for at least two dozen pencils. Dunno why. There are about 180 days in the school year. That's one pencil every 7.5 days. Not even a meth-addled chartered accountant goes through a pencil in 7.5 days.
It was reported this week that 100 acres of trees fall each day to satisfy China's appetite for disposable chopsticks. If that's so, then 80 acres must be lost to Canadian pencil wastage.
Multiples of other items seem excessive, too, Who needs 10 glue sticks? Some stuff seems non-essential: an Ottawa school asked each child to bring four tennis balls to place on the legs of their chairs.
Perhaps all this extra stuff explains why our kids all need chiropractic care by Grade 4. I spent years watching my child stagger off to school under the weight of a backpack larger than the one my dad humped around Europe in the Second World War (but then, the Wehrmacht travelled light).
Never could figure out what she had in there. Sandbags, perhaps. Or another child.
Tomorrow's child might need an even bigger backpack. Oh well, at least toilet paper isn't heavy.
