My students need Kindle Paperwhite E-Readers, chargers and protective cases to provide them with engaging reading material that can be used in a sterile environment.
My students are frequent flyers. Imagine a 12-year old boy with a weakened immune system who is overcome by minor infections that might make no impression on a healthy kid. Or a 5-year old with severe persistent asthma triggered by a whole list of everyday, hard-to-avoid substances, like dust and pollen. Or 9-year old girl who has been in and out of the hospital 4 times during the school year due to a chronic condition such as sickle cell anemia which, during a flare up, can cause intense pain.
Thanks to the New York City Department of Education, any child admitted to a hospital is entitled to instruction by a licensed teacher.
Sometimes these students are alone for hours during the day, e.g., when parents have no choice but to work. Or when there are other children or ill family members at home. Obviously illness presents challenges to a child's education, but not only for the child. A hospital teacher has to think outside the box. How can I get my materials to the bedside of ill students? How can I maintain a sterile environment? How can I motivate students who may be hurting or depressed?
My Project
E-readers will allow students confined to their beds, to read an endless supply of sterile books, newspapers, magazines, and comic books. Paper materials must be given or thrown away, so they may not read newspapers, preventing them from keeping up-to-date with current events. Sports fans are left in the lurch and graphic novel and comic fans miss out on what may be their only voluntary reading materials. The waterproof cases I'm requesting can be sterilized with the supplies that are readily available in the hospital.
Paper books can't be sterilized!
With only a limited supply of physical books, we are not able to donate copies to students who are restricted to a sterile environment.
Also, hospital classrooms are generally small, as in tiny. The actual hospital rooms are extremely crowded, with all kinds of equipment and very little storage space and nary a bookshelf in sight. It's hard to keep a large enough variety of reading materials to meet the needs and interests of students of all ages, abilities and lengths of stay. E-readers will release us from the limitations of paper and allow us to pop the bubble that is necessary for infection control.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Teacher Polisciano Gonzalez and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
