A scene from a school day

Order Supplies

Poster board, a case of glue sticks, baking soda, enough paper cups for twenty-four eruptions. The school orders supplies once a month, and the order closes Friday at noon. It is one short form to the office. You will fill it in at lunch.

Lunch is a girl who cannot find her inhaler and a call to the nurse. Afternoon recess is a scraped knee and a dispute over a ball that takes the whole fifteen minutes to settle fairly. After school there is a parent waiting by the door who just needs a minute, and the minute is twenty.

On Friday you think of it at 12:40, standing at the copier. You check the office tray in case you did it and do not remember. You did not. The order went out forty minutes ago.

Friday at 12:40, order form in hand, the teacher finds the supply order went out at noon

So on Sunday afternoon you are in the craft aisle with a basket, doing the arithmetic in your head. Glue sticks, poster board, two boxes of baking soda, a sleeve of cups. Forty-one dollars. You will not put in for it, because putting in for it is another form, and the form is another thing to remember.

Sunday afternoon in the craft aisle, the teacher buys the class supplies with her own money

The volcanoes erupt on schedule. The children never know where the cups came from, and they should not have to. But it was your Sunday and your forty-one dollars, and both went to a form that would have taken two minutes on Tuesday.

The form was two minutes. Finding two minutes for it, in a day that had none to spare, was the whole job — and when it slipped, the cost came out of your weekend.

Teacher Reminder is somewhere to put it down. Two seconds in the moment it comes up, and it is waiting for you when you have room for it.

Try the demo

No account or email required.

More notes off the board

Print copiesThe worksheets you meant to run off before the bell, and the moment at 10:15 when twenty-four children are waiting for them.Call Student's MomThe call you promised at pickup, the day that swallowed it, and the 9pm moment on the sofa when it comes back.Grade QuizzesThe stack of quizzes that rides to school and home again all week, and the three lessons you teach on top of a gap you cannot see yet.Field Trip FormsTwenty-four permission slips, twenty-one back in the folder, and the bus idling at the curb while one child waits by the door.Email SuppliesThe supply list you meant to send families on Monday, the email that went out Thursday night, and three children with nothing to bring.

Written as a scene rather than an interview: nobody is named here and nothing is quoted, because no teacher told us this one. If you are a teacher and your own morning went like this, we would rather print yours. Tell us about it.