School rant: dont borrow or lend

The BBQ Pit
#1

I bought my son a good calculator for school. One that could do fractions. I warned him “Do NOT lend this out” or you wont get it back. Well yesterday he lent it out and never saw it again.

Thing is, 7th graders not only steal on purpose, but accidentally leave things out or lend it to someone else, forget where they put it, etc… Even “good” kids do stuff like this.

Normally I dont intervene and would just let him learn his lesson but this time I did so I actually called up the kids parents and asked them to make sure the kid gives my son’s calculator back since its become essential for his homework.

BTW, I also warned him not to borrow from someone else since it’s also likely he will have trouble returning something and then the kid comes back and says he stole it or something.

#2

I teach 7th grade. It is a fool who looks for responsibility and accountability for personal possessions in that age group.

#3

Why does a seventh grader need a calculator that does fractions? Isn’t he in school to learn how to do it?

#4

When my 7th grader loaned out his 20-volume set of the OED we never saw it again!
And what’s the point of needing a dictionary anyway? Isn’t he in school to learn how to spell?

#5

:dubious: Sounds like you should be pitting the person responsible, your child, who is also not old enough to be responsible.

“At school, my 18 month old can not stop shitting himself!”

#6

Same reason he’d need a calculator at all?

I thought he was.

#7

I just can’t believe that a user named Urbanredneck missed an opportunity to quote Polonius.

#8

Good lord, I hope the seventh grader isn’t learning fractions in seventh grade. By this point, he should be learning much more advanced concepts that are predicated on an understanding of fractions. If he still doesn’t understand fractions (a third grade concept), he needs some serious remedial work. And if he does understand fractions, requiring him to solve them from scratch each time is needless busywork that will prevent him from focusing on the advanced concepts he should be focused on.

#9

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

#10

I only know the version from Gilligan’s Island:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Do not forget, stay out of debt.

#11

Wait what? You’re not a good husband if you borrow?

#12

“Borrowing” here refers to wife-swapping, and the “dulls the edge” line is talking about syphilis.

#13

If you borrow your friend’s wife you’re not.

#14

What about his ass?

#15

I agree that the advice in the OP is probably wise, but Polonius was pretty clearly meant to be kind of a fatuous windbag who was dispensing simplistic catch phrases out of self-importance. After all, he’s the one who makes the brilliant observation, “Oh I am slain,” when Hamlet kills him.

#16

Yeah, that’s been stuck in my head ever since jsgoddess linked to it in a recent thread.

#17

It’s only been a day. “Never” might be a bit strong.

#18

I ask to be
Or not to be
A rogue or peasant slave
Is what you see
A boy who loved
His mother’s knee
And so I ask
to be or not to be.

#19

Or his neighbor’s wife’s ass.

#20

Yeah, my first thought too.

“I lent something out yesterday, and i never saw it again!”

Sounds a bit hyperbolic, doesn’t it?