CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Making Music

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Making Music

Donors Choose Monday: Making Music

Continuing my plan to try to help a bit in the real classrooms of the nation. Not excusing the local districts that ought to be funding these projects, but I prefer to light and candle and curse the darkness at the same time. Multitasking, you know. 

This week I'm looking at some music asks, because music generally gets the short end of the too-small stick to begin with, and it's near and dear to my heart. As always, I invite you to donate to one of these , or to comb through the site for something near and dear to your heart, or to just reach out to a local teacher who can use something for her classroom.

Mr. Lewis is at the Ramon C Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles (known unofficially as Grand Arts High School) and he would like to "take" his students to a virtual choir festival. The pandemic has been hard on performing groups everywhere, so this seems like a nice chance for his group.

Mr. Rodrigues at Homestead Senior High School in Homestead, Florida, would like a flugelhorn. If you're unfamiliar, a flugel is a mellower sibling of the trumpet (Chuck Mangione is the only guy I know of to ever popularize it), and very few high school musicians have one of their own--heck, not that many school programs have one. But it provides a little more richness and variety to the sound, and while I'd be just as happy if everyone had a trombone choir program, this is a worthy addition to any band program. 

Ms. Blizzard is at Dearing Elementary School in Dearing, Georgia, (a rural town with no traffic light) and she would like a bass xylophone for their Orff ensemble (she is Orff trained), which is a great percussiony way to get students involved in music. So basically, this would take something cool and make it cooler.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Making Music

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Chose Monday: Books. Just Books.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Chose Monday: Books. Just Books.

Donors Chose Monday: Books. Just Books.

Researchers actually took a look at teacher fundraising via Donors Chose and other micro-philanthropy sites. Some of the patterns that emerged are not exactly surprising--the site is used for "triage and not extras," and more prevalent in states where funding of schools is less than optimal. 

As I've said before, Donors Choose shouldn't be a thing. The need it meets shouldn't exist, and stories about how Teacher Pat had a project funded are not feel-good stories--they're a sign that funding for education in this country is a mess. 

That said, we can either ignore the problem because it shouldn't exist, or we can try to pitch in. I am not a fan of enabling bad management, but in retirement I keep looking for ways to support not just the profession, but the people working in it. So I continue with this weekly (or bi-weekly or however often I get back to it) choice to find a Donors Chose  project and support it, and invite you to join me. If not on the featured project, then on one of your own choice, or a contribution to a local classroom. 

This time, I'm contributing to Mrs. Ploss and her first grade classroom at Elk Valley Elementary School in Lake City, PA. Mrs. Ploss is looking for books and Scholastic magazine. I can't think of anything any better than getting reading materials into first graders' hands.

Also, Mrs. Small at Shaver Elementary School in Portland, OR is trying to build a classroom library that reflects the diversity of her students. What can I say? I love the books.

And speaking of books for kids-- I've written about and you've probably heard about the Imagination Library, a project of Dolly Parton. It puts a book a month in the hands of families of littles across the country and internationally as well. It's one of the great modern educational philanthropies, and you can contribute to their work directly--just follow this link. 

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Chose Monday: Books. Just Books.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Give This Book

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Give This Book

Donors Choose Monday: Give This Book

Ms. Evans-Klopp is at Andrew T. Morrow in Central Islip, NY in a high-poverty neighborhood and trying to work through open-yet-restricted building work, and she'd like a class set of Give This Book a Title by Jarrett Lerner to give her third graders some excitement and a little creative break.

You can help with even a small donation. And as always, I encourage you to lend a hand to someone, somewhere. I do these posts to make it easy, but if you know of a local need, now is the time to step up and help. Every little bit helps.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Give This Book

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Small Things

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Small Things

Donors Choose Monday: Small Things

I have been trying to make a regular weekly attempt to give some small support to teachers on Donors Choose, a platform that allows teachers to solicit support for projects in their classroom. Not all schools allow their teachers to participate, and I wish there was a better way to find teachers who deserve a hand, but we work with what we've got.

Sometimes the asks are really small, simple things. The kinds of things that you'd hope school districts would fund themselves, but you already know how that goes. But I'm a big believer that small differences are what really move the needle in this world, especially from the perspective of the students who are getting the help.

So I have some small things for your consideration this week.

In Mount Airy, NC, Mrs. Fletcher is looking for bookmarks for her littles at Franklin Elementary School. It's not a big ask, but it struck a chord-- I remember how much I liked a really cool bookmark to stick in a book I was reading (it is possible that I have not outgrown this). 

In Friendswood, TX, Ms. Gardner is looking for some help funding her cache of classroom treats and prizes for good work. As with many Donors Choose asks, you may be thinking, "Well, hell, all the teachers in the world self-fund their classroom prize store, and I agree. So let Ms. Gardner be a reminder and an inspiration, and help provide some teacher you know with some classroom rewards. And if you don't know a teacher who could use that, then help Ms. Gardner.

Also, I am shocked--okay, not shocked exactly, but disturbed--to see how many teachers are on Donors Choose asking for hand sanitizer, masks, basic PPE. I'm not going to put any of them up, but I am going to suggest that you could easily grab some extra of these items the next time you're shopping, and drop them off at a school near you. Should the school already be providing such things? Absolutely. But the need is still there. My old district stopped buying facial tissue a few decades ago, and many parents got in the habit of just sending a box into school with their child every so often. An absolute godsend.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Small Things

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Ukuleles

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Ukuleles

Donors Choose Monday: Ukuleles

 Okay, this has turned out to be more sporadic than I originally planned. Bt I'm still committed to making regular attempts to supporting public school teachers in small ways (beyond just yapping about policy issues). Yes, Donors Choose sometimes includes requests for funding that absolutely should be coming from the local district, and no, I don't have any way of checking to see if the teacher is an admirable professional and not a putz. That's all right-- I'm still going to keep doing it, and encouraging you to join me. 

Teachers should have support and assistance, and Donors Choose remains a not-bad way to do that. So.

This week I've picked a school in the Waynesboro, VA system. Wenonah Elementary is a Title I school and Ms. Gilmer is a first year music teacher who is trying to round up a set of ukuleles. I am a sucker for ukes, though I can't play myself, and for programs that give students a chance to become musicians, a skill that can enrich the entire rest of their lives. Don't care if it raises test scores, and I don't care if it's not on employers' list of in-demand skills. Being able to make music is a life-altering existence-improving activity, and ukes are a great tool for elementary kids.

So you can go to this page and chip in. Doesn't have to be a lot, but it's an easy way to support a new teacher and her students.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Ukuleles

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Mice

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Mice

Donors Choose Monday: Mice

I donate locally when I can identify a need, and for a few weeks I've also been donating to teachers across the country on Donors Choose, because it makes me feel slightly less helpless in these crazy days. I've been blogging about it here to encourage you--if you can--to offer some help to someone. Maybe you know of worthy causes or programs local to you. But if you're just not sure where you can help, well, here's my cause of the week.

This is a chance to give students individual mouses for photo studio class in Stamford, CT. If you've tried to do photo editing with a touchpad, you know how useful a mouse can be. This is a large, rural high school and I'm envious that they have a visual arts program like this. As a yearbook advisor, I would have been delighted to have someone in the building training photographers instead of doing it all from scratch myself. So this is a project I'm happy to support. 

Join me in supporting this project. Or support some other project at Donors Choose. Or support something in your community. Give to a food bank. Contribute to your library, or a local theater, or some vital local business that is currently struggling. Do what you can. 

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Mice

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Expanding the Library

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Expanding the Library

Donors Choose Monday: Expanding the Library

This week's project is exactly the sort of thing that shouldn't be on donors choose. 

Mrs. Gibson is an elementary teacher in South Carolina, and she's looking to expand her classroom library.

My students are living in a low income area where literacy is our focus in order to meet the needs they may not be receiving at home.

My focus is to bring in books that we help them connect with other cultures within the world and the school setting to help them become culturally competent and aware.

A classroom teacher should not have to go begging for books, and yet, here we are. I've made this comparison before--tips should not be a necessary part of a food server's income, but if I refuse to tip as a protest against the system, I'm just being a jerk and the people who get hurt are not the people perpetuating the system. 

So my dream is a world in which South Carolina funds public education properly and Mrs. Gibson and all the teachers like her have the classroom libraries they need. But in the meantime I can either complain about the problem or take a simple step to improve even one small corner of the universe. So I'm giving a tiny little donation to this project, and I encourage you to do the same.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: Expanding the Library

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

Donors Choose Belated Monday

Orff and Robots

Okay, so I got caught up in the business of holiday stuff and pandemic surge, and I forgot to post Monday. But I am continuing with making a modest weekly contribution to some classroom somewhere in this country. As I've said before, Donors Chose shouldn't be a thing because schools should be fully funded, but in the meantime, individual teachers in individual classrooms can use a hand. This is doubly true in pandemic times, when pretty much no districts are investing the extra money needed to really pull this off.

So here's a simple way to help. I'll share with you my classroom of the week, and you can help with that one, or pick another one (last time somebody followed me onto the site and funded the entire project, which was cool). 

I'm doing two this week.

The first is from the school just right up the road where many of my friends teach. In this rural-ish area, robotics have really caught fire, but a lot of the emerging programs are operating on shoestring budgets. This particular elementary group needs some cases for transporting robots and equipment to competitions. I don't know this particular teacher, but I do know that these robot events are a huge amount of fun and have really allowed some students to find a niche that they might not otherwise have found. 

Meanwhile, out in Kansas, a teacher would like a set of Orff instruments for his K-5 elementary school. These are a great introduction to music for young students and a way for music learning to enrich their days even if they aren't destined to become future professionals.

It's a small thing, but I'm a big believer in doing small things to make the world slightly less sucky, so as always you are invited to join me in making a small contribution in a classroom somewhere.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: The Extra Screen

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: The Extra Screen

Donors Choose Monday: The Extra Screen

Every Monday, I'm making a donation to someone on Donors Choose, a well-rated charity site that lets folks offer financial support to teachers across the country. No, we shouldn't have to do this. Yes, some of the requests might raise an eyebrow (is that something you really need, really?) But we are where we are in the world right now, and this is a small way to help support individual classrooms in a concrete way.

This week I'm looking at a request for a second screen. Actually, there are many such requests on the site. If you have never had a second screen, well-- it's heaven. Two or three windows open at once, able to work on this without having to minimize that. And in the age of the zoom meeting (or Google Meet or whatever software you're using during the pandemess), a second screen can be one of those things that just makes life a bunch easier. It's exactly the kind of thing that a teacher can really benefit from and administration would label an unnecessary luxury.

So I'm donating to a teacher at the Young Women's Leadership School in the Bronx. The dollar CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Monday: The Extra Screen