Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Limiting Costs from Lost Novels


This year, in Ms. Massey's class, a fourth grade teacher who is my mentor until November, finished reading a novel with her class. They were reading Babe. Every student would have a Babe novel that was assigned to them. Every student has a student number. Every Babe novel has a number. If a student's number is the same as the number on a Babe novel, then that is the Babe novel which is assigned to them. For example, if a student is #20 in the class, then they will use the Babe novel labeled #20.

I need to give you some context on the signficance of labeling each Babe novel with a number. Every night, students were required to read a chapter from Babe. Also, they had to take note on what they read. Sometimes, although not always, there would be a pop quiz on the last chapter that they had read. These are the reasons why every student needed to take their assigned Babe novel home every night.

The problem with any elementary student taking their novel home is that some students will lose their assigned novel. Let's say that a student loses a novel. They don't want the teacher to be mad them, while no one is looking, that student takes another novel. Because the pages were labeled along the edges with a number in permanent marker, it will be obvious if a student possesses a book that doesn't belong to them. In which case, you can more accurately track who has lost a novel. Since you would be able to accurately track who had lost a novel, then you will know who's back to get on to pay for a replacement copy. That's an easy way to limit the cost from lost novels.

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