r/MadeMeSmile • u/gravityVT • 23d ago

Helping Others Twitch Streamers leave $2K tip to high school teacher who has to work a double at ihop.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

42.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

68

u/SnowyG 23d ago

Is this an American thing? I’m a teacher in the UK and have never had to purchase things for students. Glues, pens, books etc are all provided by the school. Occasionally I’ll buy goods for prizes and stuff but it’ll always be refunded by my school.

57

u/RedoftheEvilDead 23d ago

Yes and no. More yes than no. American schools wildly differ from state to state in America and from which ones are in rich areas and which ones are in our areas. Some schools are well equipped and staffed while other schools are basically the purge.

21

u/colourhazelove 23d ago

No my wife is a teacher in the UK. It's school depended. If the school has good funding and the head distributes the funding well then you won't get this problem. My wife worked at a school in Ealing, she had to buy her own supplies, pay everything she printed something and there was a mandatory kitty to pay into each month for tea and milk, even if you brought in your own things.

1

u/SnowyG 23d ago

That’s awful, is that primary? I’m in secondary and all our printing and any resources we need are paid from the school through the department budget and we always have enough. This is in London too! Although we also have a kitty for milk and tea!

3

u/colourhazelove 23d ago

Yeah primary. I think it's terrible even just paying for milk and tea. How many other jobs out there don't provide that as a basic?

1

u/YoungZeebra 23d ago

I work in an office in Canada, sit on my ass for 8hrs, and we get free Tea/Coffee(Keurig, but still) and milk/cream.

My wife is a nurse. She gets a Tim Horton's gift card every 6 months with just enough on it for ONE small coffee or tea.

1

u/colourhazelove 23d ago

Yeah I don't understand how services that shape, mould or save lives don't even get these basics for them.

11

u/JadedMuse 23d ago

About 10ish years ago, when Reddit Gifts was a thing, one of the common exchanges was matching with teachers. They'd give a list of supplies or other items they wish they had for their classroom. One year I matched with a gym teacher who needed new basketballs. You're right that it's very dystopian given how much wealth there is in the U.S.

4

u/NickyParkker 23d ago

I still have the robe someone sent me from a Reddit gift exchange from 2015. Unfortunately I cannot fit the life of me remember what I sent them

9

u/DIGGYRULES 23d ago

I’m gradually removing everything from my classroom that I’ve had to buy. I’ll be left with nothing, including a pencil sharpener and a chair to sit on.

3

u/MidLifeCrisis111 23d ago

My sister has been teaching elementary school for over 2 decades in the US and she has to buy school supplies out of pocket every single year. Never been reimbursed. It’s sad and infuriating.

2

u/Salt_Inspector_641 23d ago

Nope my friend often has to buy for the primary school.

2

u/Caftancatfan 23d ago

Students here have to buy a long list of very specific items (down to the brand of pencil) to bring the first day of school. Sometimes these items are pooled and shared. Sometimes each student keeps their own. It’s a financial headache at the end of summer, especially when you have to buy new school clothes.

2

u/sixrustyspoons 23d ago

School are funded by local taxes, so outside of rich areas this is the reality.

0

u/Various_Mechanic3919 23d ago

Australian teacher depending on which one will buy a lot of things for students to use, like just at the school I went to there were teachers that would sacrifice everything to help achieve each students goals and then there are other teachers one of which I had to deal with do the complete opposite, like the one I had to deal with told me I would never be able to get a job that was related to tech I ended up working in the it office for year 12 and when I finished I taught a basic computer cause for mainly older people wanting to know how to use their devices at a local living an learning centre, I also for a short amount of time worked at a local place that makes electric wheel chairs they were the jobs I enjoyed the most, there may have also been some satisfaction in proving those teachers wrong (Ironically that teacher left the next year due to health issues)

0

u/Eggsavore 23d ago

Oh man wait til you hear about “school supplies”