Day: May 20, 2010

The school year is almost over, but it’s never too late for the teachers to ban items from the classroom.

M.’s class has been overrun by the scourge of our times: Silly Bandz. For the non-parents, or parents of younger kids, Silly Bandz are basically colored rubber bands that have been molded to the shape of kid friendly objects: pets, dinosaurs, zoo animals, etc. Kids wear them as bracelets and trade them with friends and classmates. It’s one of those dead simple inventions that has someone sitting on an island, sipping fruity drinks, and figuring out how to move their business off-shore to avoid taxes. It’s not unusual to see kids walk into class with their arms completely covered with Silly Bandz. M. and C. have both come home with them from birthday parties, or from friends who were willing to share some of their own.¹ They hit the mother load over the weekend when they each got a package for C.’s birthday.

Anyway, we limited the girls to wearing one for each year of age to school; M. can wear five, C. four. There was complaining, but for the most part they’ve gone along with that rule. On Wednesday, though, M. came home and said her teacher told the class Silly Bandz would not be allowed in class anymore. As M. told it, Mrs. B. was tired of having to compete with Silly Bandz for her students’ attentions. I understand her frustration, but I also laugh at the image of her trying to lead the class in a lesson and looking up to see 12 kindergarteners arguing over who gets the green Stegosaurus and who gets the blue star. It’s a laugh of sympathy and understanding.

So kudos to Mrs. B. for saying “Enough!” I bet that by the end of the summer, when the Silly Bandz have run their course, we’ll be picking them out of couch cushions, from behind beds and dressers, etc. and tossing them into the trash without a word of protest from the girls.