Monkeys
Caroline came home from school very excited. She told me that there was a fundraiser at school (she has no idea what they were raising money for) and that for each dollar donated, the student would get a raffle ticket. The winner, she said, would get to do one of the following for a day:
Be the P.E. teacher
Have a private lesson with the music teacher
Each nothing but candy for lunch
Keep a pet monkey with her at school
"What the @#%$* ? Who comes up with this stuff?", I thought.
Caroline was convinced that she would win. She wanted to be P.E. for the day. She was already making out her lesson plan. She asked me for money to donate, and I said I'd give her ten bucks. "Great!" she said, "and I'm going to give another $20 of my allowance!" Whoa! Hold on there.
Twenty dollars is a lot of money for a kid who gets $4 a week. She does have that much money saved up, but I wasn't excited about her using her savings on raffle tickets. It seemed an awful lot like gambling to me. As for charity, I felt $10 was more than sufficient for the nebulous cause of "for the school." I have always been proud of her giving heart, but it seemed in this case she was motivated a lot more by the prize than the cause. Eventually we decided that she would spend $5 of her own money and spend some more at the book fair, which would also be helping the school.
But what's up with the monkey? It didn't make sense.
A quick email to the teacher provided the answer. They were doing a fundraiser, and one of the prizes was to be P.E. teacher for the day (who comes up with this stuff?), but she assured me that NO MONKEYS ARE INVOLVED. It turns out that they did a little skit to introduce the fundraiser. "Wouldn't it be great if you could eat nothing but candy for lunch? Wouldn't it be great if you could bring a pet monkey to school?" This led into the concept that this fundraiser could allow you to do something outrageous (be P.E. teacher, principal, or librarian for the day, or get the private music lesson instead of being in class).
Caroline's teacher says that she turned to the teacher next to her and said, "somebody's gonna think they're gonna get a monkey." Sure enough, somebody did. And it was Caroline.
Be the P.E. teacher
Have a private lesson with the music teacher
Each nothing but candy for lunch
Keep a pet monkey with her at school
"What the @#%$* ? Who comes up with this stuff?", I thought.
Caroline was convinced that she would win. She wanted to be P.E. for the day. She was already making out her lesson plan. She asked me for money to donate, and I said I'd give her ten bucks. "Great!" she said, "and I'm going to give another $20 of my allowance!" Whoa! Hold on there.
Twenty dollars is a lot of money for a kid who gets $4 a week. She does have that much money saved up, but I wasn't excited about her using her savings on raffle tickets. It seemed an awful lot like gambling to me. As for charity, I felt $10 was more than sufficient for the nebulous cause of "for the school." I have always been proud of her giving heart, but it seemed in this case she was motivated a lot more by the prize than the cause. Eventually we decided that she would spend $5 of her own money and spend some more at the book fair, which would also be helping the school.
But what's up with the monkey? It didn't make sense.
A quick email to the teacher provided the answer. They were doing a fundraiser, and one of the prizes was to be P.E. teacher for the day (who comes up with this stuff?), but she assured me that NO MONKEYS ARE INVOLVED. It turns out that they did a little skit to introduce the fundraiser. "Wouldn't it be great if you could eat nothing but candy for lunch? Wouldn't it be great if you could bring a pet monkey to school?" This led into the concept that this fundraiser could allow you to do something outrageous (be P.E. teacher, principal, or librarian for the day, or get the private music lesson instead of being in class).
Caroline's teacher says that she turned to the teacher next to her and said, "somebody's gonna think they're gonna get a monkey." Sure enough, somebody did. And it was Caroline.
posted by Sandy and Cathy at
3:24 AM
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