Paying to Go

No work today. I'm getting over a headache. It hit me hard when I got home, but it's now mostly dissipated.

Yesterday was such an interesting day. I like to see how various teachers run their classrooms. Sometimes they have interesting ideas. One of the points in yesterday's lesson plan was that the class had a class economy, so it cost the students "money" if they wanted to use the restroom.

A lot of special ed teachers have a reward system that uses fake money. On Fridays these students get to "shop" in the teacher's "store" for rewards like pencils or candy or chips. So, I was familiar with the idea. However, this teacher did it in a different way.

He charged $20 for a restroom pass.

I thought that amount a bit high. But then I saw some corrected work on the teacher's desk, and attached to that was a "check" for $6000. Okay then, $20 not that high. Since it was the going rate, no one balked when I asked for it when they asked to use the restroom.

When I asked one student for the $20, he asked to borrow it from another student. I wondered if this was legal. Since the second student readily lent the money, and the first student promised to repay, I figured they did this sort of thing all the time.

Then later in the day, I asked for the $20, and the student went looking for it in his folder. He had several ones, but nothing larger. So, he pulled out a check, and he wrote me a check for $100. He had a ledger and everything. I assumed that he had enough in his "bank account" to cover the $100. If not, I guess he'd be "overdrawn".

I left the check for the teacher. I gave the student $80 cash back. I had that student in a later period, and we did the exact same thing then. I guess they have separate funds for each class.

I wonder what else they spend their funds on. Since the classes were so well-behaved, I figure that whatever this teacher is doing is working.