Help a teacher out

Has anyone considered that our schools systems are being required to do more than teach kids the basics anymore?
We have our President's "No Child Left Behind" which is shoving kids through the system. We have the politically correct police who want every textbook to overemphasize what happened to non white males who got clobbered by the white males who blazed their trail to create the US at the expense of telling the story of our this country came to be. (Yes, I know that the Native Americans got their ass beat and are now suffering the consequences of what happened - about four generations back, my Grandparents were trying to figure out how the hell they ended up in a wooden house instead of living off the land like their parents did so I got me some Cherokee blood in my veins)
My Dad used to co-lead an Explorer scout troop. He did a lecture about the founding fathers. He wrote on the blackboard "4 July 1776" and asked the kids what it meant. Not a single kid knew. It wasn't taught in school. The signing of the Declaration of Independence. These days they spend more time talking about how this magnificently written act of defiance and freedom was written by a slave owner and signed by other slave owners. There isn't a lot of emphasis about what happened and why.
I remember in university, I had a modern history class that covered from the year 1900 to present day. The instructor went along fine until he got to World War II and the Holocaust. We spent five weeks discussing the Holocaust. Five weeks. It wasn't until I had to take a second history class that I found out that there had also been a holocaust in other places. That other people had suffered the horrors of being take to the genocide dance. Perhaps not in the numbers of the Jewish people but according to this one instructor, there were none other and if there were, it wasn't as important.
But I want to talk about the public school system at the elementary school level. How kids today are not so much being raised by parents but by their teachers. How teachers are now not only having to teach little Johnny and Susie 1-2-3 and A-B-C but they are also having to teach them how to say 'please' and 'thank you' plus monitor them for abuse, psychological issues and possibilities of being a sociopath. I know that there are a lot of parents out there who are working long work weeks but at the expense of not being able to teach their own children how to be civilized little beings? Wow.
And as much as it has been hammered in the media about how a teacher - who is shaping the minds of our youth - makes bupkis compared to a sports star or celebrity, no one seems to get that something can be done about it. Everyone assumes this means a raise in taxes when you talk about trying to help a teacher out but let's think grassroots level, people. Let's start with something easy to do.
Next month, all the office supply stores and general merchandise stores like Target, KMart and WalMart are going to be doing their Back To School sales. Some of them have outrageously great deals on basic supplies. I like to stock up on crayons to give to friends' kids when they come over to draw and take home with them when they are done.
Why doesn't everyone pick up a list - whether you've got a kid in school or not - from the school nearest them to find out what is required? The schools some times have them at their websites and these lists are often in the stores also. If you've got a spare $10, pick up what you can and take it to the administration building of the school and tell them you want to donate. Do it because you give a rat's ass about the future of the kids at the school. Do it because a teacher's miniscule salary must cover not only their family's basic needs but also the needs of their classroom.
Or even better, if you do have a kid in school, throw the teacher a shower. Have your child invite classmates over to give their teacher great gifts that they can use in the classroom. This way your child learns that giving is a great thing and it can be fun as well as being able to give a teacher a break.
Sure, bake sale might not be able to raise enough funds to build a new multi-purpose room but it can raise some funds to be used to help a teacher or library stock up on much needed books and supplies.
Give it some thought then do it.
I always planned to help Boy's teachers out when he went off to school. Pick up some extras for the classroom. It's something that I know would be appreciated and needed. I have too many friends that are teachers that have told me how hard it is to take care of their own needs as well as the needs of their students. So how tough is it to kick down an extra $10? Skip a latte. Eat a sandwich from home once.
Let's help a teacher out.