A New Rant...Beware!

Well, if you follow the blog at all, you may remember my issues with field trips. In the same vein, my newest rant is about Book Fairs at school. Now, before I begin, please understand that we can open our own library with all of the books we have around here. If we ever stopped visiting Amazon or CBD, I feel sure that they would see a sharp decline in business and be concerned, very concerned. Not to mention, we have teachers all through our family line. Books are like food, water and air to my children and me. So, the issue isn't with books or the buying of books.

My issue is with the PUSHING of buying books at SCHOOL where the children are to be LEARNING.

It's bad enough that we get the Scholastic fliers (mini catalogs) every several weeks that cause a great deal of "discussion", anger, and tears when I refuse to buy from them. Then TWICE a year they bring to school huge, rolling bookshelves full of books that the children go visit and make wish lists. Those lists come home for parents to look at (i.e., write a check for) and the children go BACK to buy those books. Oh, and please be aware, they are filled with great literary pieces like Spiderman/Batman comic books, AJ & Ally (two sisters from the Disney world) mystery books and High School Musical poster books. And don't even get me started on the assortment of pencils, erasers and sharpeners (that break before they even get home) that are sitting at the check out place.

Now, call me old fashioned, but I think my children are at school to LEARN, not buy books. If a child doesn't get to buy a book during Book Fair, they feel as if they have missed out on something. This little money making scheme is promoted as "raising money for the school" otherwise known as fundraisers.

Wait, isn't that what my TAXES are for? Do we really need to use our children to raise more money? Is it really effective to use the children buying literary fluff to raise money so that they can learn better at school? I'm not seeing the common sense here!

Needless to say, it gets expensive to buy all of the books to "raise money for the school" when you have 5 kids. My kids did buy books today, except Collin, who came home in tears because he didn't have enough money to get what he wanted. Now, we need to go back tomorrow and see if they have what he wants. Oh, the joy of it all.