If I only had 100 dollars to spend in my classroom…

Classrooms have like their own Mazlow’s Hierarchy of needs in terms of what I’ve seen teachers buy for them when given some money from the PTA or administration. Possibly you just have 100 dollars lying around and want to invest in your classroom. And since this never really happens, another great place to play the: “How-could- I-improve-my-experience-next-year-with-just-100-American-dollars-game” is on DonorsChoose. I highly recommend it.

First, thanks to Teaching Tolerance’s “Give a Kid a Pencil”, in which they write about the simple relationship transformation which takes place when a teacher goes from being someone who’s upset at a student for not having a pencil to someone who… has pencils in the room, I would spend the first 10 bucks of my 100 dollars on golf pencils. You can get a pack of like 100 golf pencils for 5 dollars, so there’s really no excuse to not have them available year round. I mean like, I think my middle schoolers really take advantage of my generous pencil system (where I literally just have a box of pencils on my desk; it’s a free for all), and I’m out maybe 20$ all year. Well worth it, in my opinion.

Anyways, I would then proceed to take the remainder of the 100$ and buy…

But no! Not art supplies (although this might be where the post-100$ money goes), and I wouldn’t advise buying new white board markers (mmm, the colors are so crisp on the fresh ones) or thrift store furniture (at least not yet, not till this crucial idea coming after this paragraph gets purchased…)

Classroom Speakers!

What? You might be saying. That doesn’t seem like the highest priority. Plus your school probably provides you with some USB speakers on a cheap laptop.

Well your school is wrong, and your priorities are wrong!

You see, I bought a nice pair of 90$ classroom speakers a few years ago, and they’ve been absolutely the best investment of my entire teaching career (sorry UCSD).

First, from a practical perspective, with a nice pair of speakers no more must you struggle when trying to show your kids a video, movie, or podcast as a class. We’ve used these speakers to listen to Animal Farm on audiobook (there’s a free, high quality version on youtube), to watch Andersonville during our Civil War unit, to watch Netflix during rainy day lunches… the list goes on and on.

But more than jazzing up your projector to become a full-fledged theater, a nice pair of classroom speakers can really transform a classroom.

In the mornings, I play music as the students come into the door. Sometimes we’re blasting Broadway hits and getting charged for the day. Thank you very much Hamilton and Greatest Showman. Sometimes we’re a french cafe, and we listen to jazz. Incidentally, I was at a nice cafe in Europe once, and I was like “Oh what singer/band is this song?” in an effort to bring that same mood-scape into my classroom and the worker was like “I don’t know. I just found a ‘French Cafe’ playlist on Spotify.”

Most of the time it’s a classroom playlist that I seed with my favorite songs and let the students add to throughout the year. I have a song requests container on my desk.

Changing the music in your room can change the whole tone of a lesson. It’s like all the benefits of changing the lighting and wall decorations for an immersive roleplay lesson, but with none of the work! I was blasting the (instrumental) soundtrack to Westworld as my students worked on their Wagontrain families for our Westward expansion project and it really perfected the mood. Video game soundtracks are another great way to get kids thinking and moving as they work on something. It’s what video game soundtracks are designed for, after all.

Most of all: loud, clear music can bring a lot of joy and life to a room. Think about how Disneyland curates the background music to your life when you visit each different section of the themepark. That’s sort of my goal with the music and sound in my room. Music is a great way to synchronize everyone’s imagination.

Anyways, if you’re a teacher, I highly recommend a pair of expensive-ish (cause I know audiophiles are cringing at the idea of 100$ speakers being good), speakers for your classroom. And if you just know a teacher, or have ever been taught by one, maybe this is the perfect present for the maestro in your life.