PARENTING
Sharpen your ... laptops? The new school supplies
By Melissa Rayworth
Associated Press
| |||
 |
|
||
| |||
|
|
||
| |||
|
|
||
| |||
|
|
||
Hand sanitizer. USB flash drive. Magenta Sharpie. Clean socks. Quick what do they have in common?
Answer: They're probably going to be in your kid's pencil case when fall comes around.
Long home to an unchanging bunch of yellow No. 2 pencils and thick pink erasers, the pencil case has gotten a makeover. Thanks to the onslaught of kid-focused marketing and the growing presence of technology in children's lives, those perennial favorites have become so last semester.
School-supply basics face competition from a growing array of products tricked out in bright colors and camo prints or plastered with the likeness of everyone from Spider-Man to those ubiquitous kids from "High School Musical."
The function of these supplies hasn't changed. Kids need to write and have things to write upon. They need to carry work to and from home. And they need tools for creative projects. But where the pencil case itself was once the canvas for self-expression and coolness, today the tools inside play that same fetish-object role.
"It's fair to say there will always be room for a No. 2 pencil," says Target spokesman Joshua Thomas. "But what's happening is that these classic back-to-school supplies are evolving."
In addition, the list of supplies considered vital has grown, says Barb Kapinus, senior policy analyst for the National Education Association. Items that didn't exist when most of today's parents were climbing aboard school buses tiny, portable hard drives and scented hand sanitizer now make the list in many places.
Whether teachers send home exhaustive wish lists or ask only for simple supplies, shopping lists have grown in school districts around the country, says Jennifer Olsen, assistant professor of education at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., and mother of two school-agers. Retailers add further fuel by offering their own exhaustive back-to-school shopping lists, broken down by age group from preschool through college.
Here are some items that will probably be tucked inside pencil cases (which now come in an eco-friendly variety made from recycled juice boxes) across the country this fall:
Unusual elements like clean socks (for erasing white boards) and zipper-closure plastic bags (for bringing things home) make many lists as well.
It's hard to know whether the trendiest school supplies will help kids focus on their work or serve as a distraction. Some districts advise against anything but the plainest supplies. But the NEA's Kapinus believes in using "this whole celebration of starting a new school year" with new school supplies to reinforce the importance of learning.
What is clear is that the pressure on parents to buy a slew of slickly designed supplies shows no sign of lagging, despite difficult economic times nationwide.
Bill Jackson, president of the nonprofit parents' advisory group www.GreatSchools.net, says parents struggling with lengthy lists "shouldn't feel the pressure to have to keep up with the Joneses with this stuff. ... Whether they bring the brand-name pencil or crayon is less important than whether they bring their kid generally prepared for school."
