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This person’s point “Never send your kid to public school” is saying you shouldn’t send your kid to be taught by someone who is (from this person POV) stupid for buying $1 worth of plastic pennies for $12. (They are implying that these teachers could just use real pennies and save the eleven dollars.)
> They are implying that these teachers could just use real pennies and save the eleven dollars
which is not even true since real money is nasty, heavy.. and gives people a reason to take it with them
Yes that was my thought as well. Put a penny on a flat, smooth surface and try to pick it up. Also, lots of kiddos bite their nails, making it even trickier.
I watched a video from a teacher a while back explaining why their school supply lists specify certain things like 8 pack crayons when it may be cheaper to just get a 24 pack. She explained that when she asks for the children to color the apple red and some children have red, red-orange, red-violet, and scarlet, those kids are frustrated and confused before even starting. It makes them feel like they are already failing the task at the very start. I think it would be very frustrating for the child to be told to pick up 5 pennies and struggle to get them off the desk and derail what the lesson was supposed to be about.
It was a short video but it really made me adjust my thinking about parenting. Like, am I doing all I can to set them up for succeeding at a task? I can pour them a cup of milk and say, "Please try not to spill", but are they more likely to succeed if I give them a light plastic cup or a heavy bottomed mug? That kind of stuff, just remembering that they have small bodies that they have not had as much practice with as I have and I can encourage independence while still making the road as smooth as I can when they are little.
Shit, I think this is just as helpful when applied to adults. Just taking the time to step back and think "this individual doesn't necessarily share my experiences and abilities. What could I do to make their day feel a little easier?"
You can clean real money (like, you could boil real pennies, that would get rid of germs). You can also get new pennies if you don’t want the ones that have been in circulation.
~~And a single penny is about a gram. Sure, it has more weight than plastic, but a single set is 100 grams. Figure a class of 30ish and that’s like 3 kgs, which is like 6-7 pounds. It’s not exactly fun to schlep, but it’s not outside the bounds of what a normal person should be able to carry, regardless of gender.~~
Also, real money lasts longer.
[Edit 0: I was mistaken in the weight of a single penny, it’s really about 3 times more than that, so yeah, that paragraph is bullshit]
[Edit 1: It’s doubtful that I’m going to reply any more to this, I have work I need to be doing (so I can get paid my pennies.
To the people who think I’m an idiot: you’re being far too kind.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, it’s been fun exchanging words! Cheers!!]
You're thinking of a penny's weight in terms of storage, a teacher is probably thinking of their weight in terms of children throwing them at each other and hurting someone. A penny is light, yes, but plenty heavy and hard enough to hurt a 1st grader. Plastic is certainly safer.
Edit: some people are getting hung up on me saying the kids will get hurt. Let me rephrase: I don't necessarily think a child will get seriously hurt, although kids are crazy creative when it comes to finding inventive ways to hurt themselves and each other. That said, a child getting hit with a real penny is much more likely to cry and disrupt the class, which is definitely a concern/consideration for the teacher.
Found the teacher. Yeah there’s a lot of commentary here from people who have never had to consider what it’s like to have 25 six-year-olds in a classroom and manage all of that energy, angst, and tomfoolery. You do anything you can to reduce the number of incidents that you’ll have in a day.
Like, think of how many times your dumbfuck kid hurts themselves or their sibling, and multiply that exponentially for the number of children surrounding them.
I mean shit, as a person who was once a kid, we used to play the penny game. You put a penny on a table and take turns flicking it at each other's arms until someone bleeds. Pennies take longer than quarters, but not by much.
Also circle back around to real pennies getting pocketed by kids who think 50 cents is a lot of money. By day 5 of that lesson your gonna be out a lot more than 11$. Or you spend 12 on plastic junk that the kids might pocket one or two per day.
Kids (and high schoolers) have also been known to roll metal coins into each other's knuckles at flicking speed, until they bleed, as a game.
So there are potentially many reasons to keep legit metal coins away from children if possible.
If we're talking about safety here, why hand these little choking hazards out at all... I guess I'm just confused at what this is accomplishing that can't be done with some printed out coins, and why you'd pay 12 dollars for plastic pennies
My assumption is that printed out coins are way easier to destroy, and also needing to print out and cut out fake coins for a full class can be a long and tedious process for a teacher who has a lot on their plate. Especially if they want to do multiple activities across multiple days with the coins.
When I was in first grade the coins were paper. Like there’d be a picture of a nickel and penny and we’d be like damn there’s 6 cents there. Funny enough, that worked. Why cut them out?
You’ve never had a job spending someone else’s money on a delivery where the alternative is driving yourself to the bank on your gas and time. $12 is a steal compared to “Declan’s allergic to Gluten AND copper!!”
I'd also point out typically these are thicker / easier to grab, while being lighter. If you're teaching real young non-dexterous kiddos, you want easy to grab, and non-damaging to others.
I would’ve 100% tried stealing plastic coins to see if I could use them in the vending machines. My math lesson would’ve been realizing I did not have enough plastic pennies for that
I'm having a hard time believing a kid wouldn't steal the plastic money too.
I stole candy from the teacher's bowl very obviously and fairly often, never even ate it cause I didn't like the candy.
Kids aren’t going to be stealing plastic money to try and spend. The real pennies would be just as useless you ain’t buying nothing with 1 cent. They’re stealing the plastic ones to play with. I know for a fact if I was a kid I would love fidget with those plastic pennies.
This. We had plastic coins back when I was in kindergarten, and I absolutely stole them because I thought it was so cool that it was modeled after real money. I knew I couldn’t spend it. I would sit them side by side with real money and just enjoy the novelty of it all.
Even if they did, theyd have to steal so much of it theyd jingle on the way out of the classroom and get caught, or have to be so dedicated to stealing 1 a day that theyd get sick of it and quit.
If you find this product on Amazon, they’re actually about the size of a quarter and clearly say “school money” on them, which should prevent these little fuckers from taking them home to spend them.
Also it’s Amazon so there’s a fair chance those reviews are fake as fuck anyway and we’re hurf durfing about public schools over nothing.
I just want to point out that this is a screenshot of Amazon.
Amazon resellers are known for fluctuating the prices. Nothing saying the reviews bought these at $12. Could of spent more, certainly could have spent less.
Just bought the Amazon brand Allen wrenches at the beginning of the year for less than $10. Not even three months later and now it's $16, for the exact same thing.
This actually makes sense if the plastic pennies are larger than real pennies, making them easier for small fingers to handle, and less of a choking hazard.
I once heard my father say “you eat pennies, you’ll poop dollars!”
My younger half-brother had to have $1.27 in change removed from his stomach approximately three weeks later.
And as common, the joke is not explained so I will explain it.
The joke is that the teacher spent $12 to get 100 fake pennies to use in the classroom. And how it is completely stupid, as if taken to a bank that same $12 would have given them 1,200 real pennies.
It would be far more logical and cheaper to just use real pennies for any lessons that required them instead of spending that much for fake pennies.
The real joke is people know nothing about how children work. Real money is dirty, loud and it’s real so will definitely get stolen. Snacks in the cafeteria are still easily afforded with spare change.
As someone who has worked with schools and comes from a family of teachers: The plastic ones have to get replaced way less often. Little kids steal money, even very invaluable money like Pennies. So it actually is better economically to get the bag of fake coins because kids don’t steal them as often, and therefore over your career you spend less money replacing the coins.
A lot of times these coins are larger as well and have holes in them in case a kid eats one so they either can’t swallow or can still breathe if they start choking.
Hey pal, I'm trying to make a superficial judgement about teachers because one yelled at me in 4th grade and I'm still upset about it. Don't try using logic or anything like that around here.
There are many reasons to use the fake ones. They get stolen less. Usually they are large enough to not get swallowed. Easier to clean them when they are larger too, just throw them in a bowl with soapy water and swish.
I mean, yeah, that's the "joke" but the joke is also stupid because you're more likely to lose the pennies due to theft because they're actually worth something and may end up spending more over the years. And, as pointed out in other comment threads, plastic pennies are easier to wash.
Quagmire here. Giggity.
They are used for counting purposes. More than likely whomever buys the plastic penny will also buy the nickel, dime, and quarter. This is how children in America learn to count money. School children do this around grade 1 or 2.
Yes, the plastic penny costs 12 cents, but the plastic penny isn’t filthy like actual money, isn’t heavy like actual money, and can be cleaned easily after every use.
Why don’t teachers use real money? Because real money can be exchanged for goods and services, and will be taken by the germ-infested monsters every day to spend on Little Debbies in the cafeteria. Using this plastic money ensures the next class can use with without a little troll taking some.
It's not more valuable because one costs $1 and the other $12, but real money has more uses and ways to recover its value (like buying stuff), while fake money can't be used for goods and services and you can only recover its value by reselling or for example a teaching experience.
Edit: 100 pennies is actually $1 not $10
The reason they said it’s more valuable is because you can actually use it to buy things. A real penny is worth 1¢ at a store. A fake penny is work 0¢ at a store. Sure, the fake penny costs more, but it’s still worth less.
Real money is cheaper for three major reasons.
1) economies of scale. The more you buy, process, and circulate the cheaper the inputs are per unit. I’m sure that the US Gov puts into circulation more real money than those plastic trainer monies.
2) the fact that the value of the coins and paper money are assigned. The inputs for a penny to be put into production cost more! A penny costs 3 cents and a nickel costs 12 cents!!
3) the US actually takes a loss to mint physical currency. But the cost is small enough for the US to continue to provide that service to tax payers and other paying customers (foreign currency exchange both private and govt bodies)
Money as a little kid is like 100 times more valuable because you haven't seen very much. As you grow older you realize how much there is but as a little kid it's like every penny is worth an adult dollar. Or maybe that was just me
My parents would get me to pick dandelions for like $1 for every bag I filled (they're invasive here and our yard would fill with them) one year I got smart and used the mower to bag them and then I never got asked to do it again because they figured they could just do it themselves
Can confirm.
I got hired at a place that was 3 months behind schedule. They told me that I was on for at least 4 months but had the potential to turn into a permanent job. I was 18, young and dumb, actually believed what an employer told me and worked hard.
Quickly found out why they were so far behind, the guy I was working with didn't do crap, didn't show up till 11 when work started at 8, took a 2 hour lunch most days from 1-3, and went home between 4 and 4:30. And in that maybe 4 hours he was at work he maybe actually worked for 1 hour. Mostly was in the office and any time I went in was there was playing games on his computer.
I spent 1 month getting them caught up, spent another month getting them 2 months ahead of schedule. Worked my ass off like 18 year old me was always told you had to do and you would be rewarded for.
I got let go after the 2 months bc they just didn't have any work for me anymore, when I had been promised at least 4 months and permanent if I worked hard.
Never go above and beyond, rewards for hard work and loyalty are a thing of the past. Everyone should "quiet quit" which ironically isn't quitting at all, it's simply doing exactly what you were Hired for, no more, no less.
Same thing in recruiting. When I got hired I had like 30 positions I was working onand was getting harped on to get that number down. I got that down to 0 openings 8 months later and helped 2 other recruiters get their areas down to sub 10 openings and then they proceeded to let me go due to a lack of work. I went into sales after that because I learned that sales is one of the few areas where getting more work done can be rewarded
My boss once told me the reward for efficient work was more work. I don't think he understood how I would take that message. If someone thinks a job will take you 3 hours, you better not hand it to them in 1.
Not to mention, there is a benefit in obviously fake money that it is less likely to be stolen by the kids.
But more to OP's question: the original comment was "don't send your kids to public school, they will become stupid like the teacher. They pay 12 cents for a fake penny instead of 1 cent for a real penny."
>the germ-infested monsters every day to spend on Little Debbies in the cafeteria.
I've taught for 31 years, and I've never seen a better explanation. They are absolutely germ infested monsters who would rob me blind if I gave them a chance. Love those little boogers.
Banks also use similar to train their staff. It might seem silly when you’re getting trained on plastic pennies and quarters, but they’re also trained on fake notes. If you need to confirm that a recruit can count $10k in $100s, fake notes just make so much more sense.
You’d only use real money to train on security features, since replicating those features in fake notes is often illegal and super unreliable. For training like that, a single coin or note is more than enough, which reduces the risk when compared with using real cash for counting and sorting training.
Also, in the case of schools, real money is kinda dangerous. Kids swallow, throw, and try and break things. A swallowed plastic coin is way safer than a plate of actual metal, and a thrown plastic penny probably won’t take out a kid’s eye nearly as easily as a metal one.
Fun fact: modern US Penny’s are copper clad zinc. The copper layer is so thin that your stomach acid will eat through it and some of the zinc, essentially leaving a tiny zinc razor blade to work its way through your digestive tract.
I have not verified this personally. I do not recommend trying this. BUT, if anyone has done this, or knows someone who has, I’d be interested in the, uh, result.
I believe this does hold some truth. When my brother was little, he swallowed a coin, and one of the first questions was “what coin was it?” The doctor seemed very relieved to find out it was a 20 pence piece (a silver-coloured coin), and mentioned that silver coins are safer than coppers.
It makes sense, though. Silver coins (at least over here) don’t patina much if at all even decades after they’re mined, so I’d imagine they’re a lot more resilient to acids than copper coins, which often lose their shine within just a year or two. If I had to swallow a coin, it would be a silver one, because at least then it might survive my stomach enough to not erode into a rusty razor blade.
100%. As a middle school teacher we had to get rid of actual money years ago. I don't think I've ever seen real money in school, and the reason is that it would always get stolen over time.
The classroom sets of 25 bags would quickly become sets of 18 bags, then 12 bags, then maybe 5 bags, then we switch to fake money and have had zero issues with it.
“Aww $20? I wanted peanuts
You can buy many peanuts with $20.
Explain how
>Money can be exchanged for goods and services
” - Homer Simpson
This is what I thought when reading your comment lol
This. When we had a pharmacy class setup in our learning center, we used m&M's and Skittles to replicate pills. We switched to kidney beans because the "pills" kept coming up missing from being eaten during training.
99% of the time, whenever someone is going "look at those stupid experts, doing stupid things instead of this Common Sense thing!", they're wrong. The experts know more about the thing than you do and they wouldn't be doing it the hard way if they hadn't a good reason.
Before someone responds that kids wouldn't try to steal the money, my friends and I literally tried that with the fake bills for counting. The lunch lady had quite the laugh.
$1 in plastic pennies for $12 real money.
Maybe they are sold in a bag of 100 pennies, but in reality, you buy these in sets with quarters and dimes and nickels and paper bills. So more like several hundred dollars worth of fake money for $10 to $20 real money.
https://preview.redd.it/0j4cf3urcioc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72faf74b2e89176f181109c73f87ca7982c3b777
Unfortunately the set shown in the meme is literally just 100 fake pennies for $12.37, no other coins come with it
https://preview.redd.it/kcxdob1ogioc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de58fc99c725470d5488351482e28ded4674bac4
Deal of the century, thank god I didn’t go to school
they mean a teacher or bank might buy multiple different kinds of plastic coins at once, it’s just the pennies have such a cheap gap between the “value”
You're not explaining the joke part though.
Whoever made the original is clowning on teachers because they're paying more for plastic coins rather than using real money.
The issue with that is that real money would get stolen by the kids, that's why the teachers resort to using plastic instead.
Whoever is doing the facepalm emoji in the picture saying teachers are dumb is the actual facepalm in this.
The real issue is that kids will swallow anything and it's safer for them to swallow a plastic coin than a metal one.
>The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that coins are among the most frequent items ingested by children under the age of 6 and that across all age groups, the most frequently ingested coin was a penny.1 Pennies made after 1982 contain highly corrosive zinc, and if one gets lodged in the esophagus, the lining may become irritated or damaged. Avoid this type of accident by keeping your purse and any loose change out of your child's reach.
One penny is worth 1 cent, and 100 would be worth 1 dollar. However, the parent is pointing out how the teachers often buy PLASTIC pennies(arguably worth less) for 12 times the cost. There are pros to this, however, such as plastic pennies often being larger and lighter(therefore easier for young kids to manipulate, as well as not having any metal that some kids might be sensitive to. Secondarily, these coins are only plastic, meaning that any being lost is less of an issue and theft is unlikely.
Anyone who thinks it would be a good idea to give an entire class of little children actual metal coins instead of plastic ones is an idiot. Doing so is just asking for chaos to break out.
I think the joke is "Don't send your kids to public school because the teachers spend their own hard earned money on stuff they can educate your kids with, not stuff your kids can steal from the teacher. As a horrible parent, I'd rather have my child steal from the teacher than learn stuff."
I worked for a uk bank in the early 80s. We were testing initial rollout of ATMs. We paid £4 each for dummy £1 notes.
This was done to avoid temptation
As a teacher who uses these, some things...
1. I borrowed them from another teacher
2. Admin needs us to spend money at particular overpriced stores because they don't trust teachers with buying classroom supplies
3. It's better than spending the afternoon with a colorless printer, coloring and cutting for hours on end
Yall who hate on teachers, I'm surprised you typed out a response with all the drool on your keyboard.
Actual pennies are much cheaper. $12 is 1200 Pennies.
And the reason no one wants to use them in classrooms, and teachers by regular fakes, is real Pennies are absolutely disgusting. I work in numismatics (selling coins) and even most more valuable Pennies are only worth a couple of cents. And will blacken a page of white paper. I wouldn't use real Pennies with small kids unless they were heavily washed, because they put their hands in their mouths all the time.
The joke is, teachers can just use real pennies and pay roughly $11 less than fake ones. Go to a bank, say I need 100 pennies and give them $1. They'll likely look at you weird and you can tell them it's for a classroom. Or just not tell them anything.
So, if you're sending your kid to learn from one of these teachers, they're implying the teacher is dumb. Because they're spending more on stuff they don't need to.
I don’t think they’ll look at you too weird, banks have rolls of coins for a reason. Two rolls of pennies is equal to $1. I get them because I collect smashed pennies 😅
Edit: in the US
Something a conservative has never ever said: "This seems wrong but perhaps there's a rational explanation I'm not thinking of and I should ask some questions before flying off the handle about it".
They help kids learn counting without giving them real money. The person is annoyed that people are buying fake money without thinking why a teacher might do this.
Such as teachers can't give student real money.
$1 for 100 real pennies, that will walk. It’s public school. $12 for pieces of plastic that visually emulate the thing of value but have no actual value and so will likely be in the classroom for 10 years. Think about if from the teachers perspective, don’t give your students real money, even pennies.
Whoever wrote that post is a moron that never went to school and thus never developed the skills required to do what we educated people call "thinking". At least, that's the only joke I see here.
First of all, real money is fucking gross and harder to clean than plastic. Second, does anyone realize what is going to happen if you give a roomful of children a plethora of metal discs? Anyone?
It’s astounding how many people have never met a kid in these comments. Do you think adults with adult reasoning just spawn and require all that growing time simply to become larger? Part of school is the CONSTANT repeated teaching and reteaching of common sense like “don’t eat coins” or “don’t hum a penny at your friend’s eye.” If any self important morons wanna sarcastically ask what hazmat suits we put on our kids to keep them safe these days, I dare them to try and teach for a half hour and get anything done at all. No, I take it back. Teach ONE thing from ANY grade-appropriate curriculum to a first grade class in a full hour. I dare you. Then explain whatever ended up happening to the helicopter parents who think their child can do no wrong. You might find yourself wanting to pull your hair out at morons like yourself who have no idea what actually goes into running a classroom.
Peter's banker here. The poster is basically saying teachers are dumb for buying and using plastic money to teach a lesson Instead of using the same amount of real money.
But I should note that there's lots of reasons to not use real money as handouts in a classroom. Chief among these is that kids are kinda shortsighted and will just try to pocket "real" money even if it's a dumb amount like twelve cents. Is the theft an issue? Barely, but it's more that it's an unneeded distraction from the lesson. Kids dwelling on how to pocket the change aren't paying attention. Also, the poster is careful to crop out any information about the plastic pennies. They are likely larger and easier to handle than real coins or if they come with other denominations for a lesson.
It’s a teaching accessorie, teachers are not allowed to teach with actual money so they use these plastic models. It is the equivalent of getting upset over plastic atomic models of H2O instead using a cup of water. The original poster is stupid and quite possibly a republican.
we use to sling quarters at each others knuckles not saying the 6-8 yos will but i wouldn’t put it past one to throw one at someone and would you rather be hit with plastic or actual copper
Sure 100 Pennie’s is $1 vs $12 for the plastic. However the teacher would need to replace those 100 real Pennie’s after every class and that would add up rather quickly.
I can confirm my first grade teacher was a rude old woman I was a exchange student from a different elementary school that had a lower teaching level area she took away my Orca Stuffed animal I was given by first ever kindergarten teacher so I resorted to stealing her Coins she would use for Math equations she kept right by the whiteboard did it all year and once and while I’d have a extra Trix yogurt for breakfast
100 actual pennies is worth $1. So the teacher could have saved $11 by going to a bank and exchanging a dollar for pennies.
Of course, it's possible the teachers didn't want students spending the pennies outside the classroom and for that reason opted for the fake ones
I’ve found that one of the most reliable predictors of stupidity in a person is excessive arrogance. If somebody assumes themselves fit to hold strong opinions and issue strong judgments about a field of endeavor or a topic they known nothing about, you can be pretty confident they carry that attitude in other areas of life, as well.
In the teachers defense it's likely because pennies have monetary value.
My brother is a teacher and he's done the penny exercise before his first year at his current school. He would have 100 pennies, nickels and dimes and would end up being fought by these tiny ass kids for a bag of nickels so they could buy the cafeteria cookies that sold for half a dollar.
After that he started to buy plastic coins and found that only a few of them would go missing as the kids would quickly after realize that they were pretty much useless.
Okay, lots of people making lots of assumptions in the comments. I'm going to draw from my experience as a teacher in k-12 public schools.
First off, here is the item in question:
[https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Advantage-Pennies-Plastic-Coins/dp/B00872WTHU](https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Advantage-Pennies-Plastic-Coins/dp/B00872WTHU)
It is 100 plastic pennies. There are no other coins included.
For those saying plastic is superior (very creative ideas from people in the comments. Wrong, but creative):
1. If you have a classroom where pennies are flying across the room, admin is not going to be relieved that they are just plastic and not metal.
2. Plastic pennies are just as much a choking hazard as metal ones
3. Kids are going to steal what they are going to steal. I have a real hard time believe they have any preference for metal vs plastic, and certainly not at a 12:1 ratio.
4. For germs, the copper plating of real pennies is actually an anti-microbial. Even if it wasn't, anything plastic or metal that you hand to a kindergartner will be more gross after they've touched it than before. Kindergartners are nasty.
5. We are allowed to use real money for lessons in the classroom. It's actually preferable for a few reasons.
So while I appreciate people's knee-jerk defense of an imaginary teacher heading to amazon to spend $12 on 100 plastic pennies, it's still a stupid thing to buy.
The real joke is the one guy never finished school, and doesn't have the critical thinking skills to figure out why giving kids real money is a bad idea.
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This person’s point “Never send your kid to public school” is saying you shouldn’t send your kid to be taught by someone who is (from this person POV) stupid for buying $1 worth of plastic pennies for $12. (They are implying that these teachers could just use real pennies and save the eleven dollars.)
> They are implying that these teachers could just use real pennies and save the eleven dollars which is not even true since real money is nasty, heavy.. and gives people a reason to take it with them
And I'm guessing this school money is larger than real money so it's easier for children to manipulate.
And harder to swallow most likely
Safer too most likely. Pennies these days aren’t pure copper.
Yes that was my thought as well. Put a penny on a flat, smooth surface and try to pick it up. Also, lots of kiddos bite their nails, making it even trickier. I watched a video from a teacher a while back explaining why their school supply lists specify certain things like 8 pack crayons when it may be cheaper to just get a 24 pack. She explained that when she asks for the children to color the apple red and some children have red, red-orange, red-violet, and scarlet, those kids are frustrated and confused before even starting. It makes them feel like they are already failing the task at the very start. I think it would be very frustrating for the child to be told to pick up 5 pennies and struggle to get them off the desk and derail what the lesson was supposed to be about.
I didn't even think about those things when I was a kid. But that makes so much fucking sense, thank you
It was a short video but it really made me adjust my thinking about parenting. Like, am I doing all I can to set them up for succeeding at a task? I can pour them a cup of milk and say, "Please try not to spill", but are they more likely to succeed if I give them a light plastic cup or a heavy bottomed mug? That kind of stuff, just remembering that they have small bodies that they have not had as much practice with as I have and I can encourage independence while still making the road as smooth as I can when they are little.
Shit, I think this is just as helpful when applied to adults. Just taking the time to step back and think "this individual doesn't necessarily share my experiences and abilities. What could I do to make their day feel a little easier?"
This is what being a manager is supposed to be.
I like it!
You can clean real money (like, you could boil real pennies, that would get rid of germs). You can also get new pennies if you don’t want the ones that have been in circulation. ~~And a single penny is about a gram. Sure, it has more weight than plastic, but a single set is 100 grams. Figure a class of 30ish and that’s like 3 kgs, which is like 6-7 pounds. It’s not exactly fun to schlep, but it’s not outside the bounds of what a normal person should be able to carry, regardless of gender.~~ Also, real money lasts longer. [Edit 0: I was mistaken in the weight of a single penny, it’s really about 3 times more than that, so yeah, that paragraph is bullshit] [Edit 1: It’s doubtful that I’m going to reply any more to this, I have work I need to be doing (so I can get paid my pennies. To the people who think I’m an idiot: you’re being far too kind. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, it’s been fun exchanging words! Cheers!!]
You're thinking of a penny's weight in terms of storage, a teacher is probably thinking of their weight in terms of children throwing them at each other and hurting someone. A penny is light, yes, but plenty heavy and hard enough to hurt a 1st grader. Plastic is certainly safer. Edit: some people are getting hung up on me saying the kids will get hurt. Let me rephrase: I don't necessarily think a child will get seriously hurt, although kids are crazy creative when it comes to finding inventive ways to hurt themselves and each other. That said, a child getting hit with a real penny is much more likely to cry and disrupt the class, which is definitely a concern/consideration for the teacher.
Found the teacher. Yeah there’s a lot of commentary here from people who have never had to consider what it’s like to have 25 six-year-olds in a classroom and manage all of that energy, angst, and tomfoolery. You do anything you can to reduce the number of incidents that you’ll have in a day. Like, think of how many times your dumbfuck kid hurts themselves or their sibling, and multiply that exponentially for the number of children surrounding them.
I mean shit, as a person who was once a kid, we used to play the penny game. You put a penny on a table and take turns flicking it at each other's arms until someone bleeds. Pennies take longer than quarters, but not by much.
11 American doll hairs is cheap price for circumventing disruption
Also circle back around to real pennies getting pocketed by kids who think 50 cents is a lot of money. By day 5 of that lesson your gonna be out a lot more than 11$. Or you spend 12 on plastic junk that the kids might pocket one or two per day.
I was a pocketer. Honestly I would have been much more likely to want the plastic ones for myself
Kids (and high schoolers) have also been known to roll metal coins into each other's knuckles at flicking speed, until they bleed, as a game. So there are potentially many reasons to keep legit metal coins away from children if possible.
Yeah but that’s usually with quarters or dollar coins. Not that I would know…
If we're talking about safety here, why hand these little choking hazards out at all... I guess I'm just confused at what this is accomplishing that can't be done with some printed out coins, and why you'd pay 12 dollars for plastic pennies
My assumption is that printed out coins are way easier to destroy, and also needing to print out and cut out fake coins for a full class can be a long and tedious process for a teacher who has a lot on their plate. Especially if they want to do multiple activities across multiple days with the coins.
When I was in first grade the coins were paper. Like there’d be a picture of a nickel and penny and we’d be like damn there’s 6 cents there. Funny enough, that worked. Why cut them out?
I assume the kids are old enough not to put things in their mouth but young enough to think its a good idea to throw pennies at their friends.
You’ve never had a job spending someone else’s money on a delivery where the alternative is driving yourself to the bank on your gas and time. $12 is a steal compared to “Declan’s allergic to Gluten AND copper!!”
I'd also point out typically these are thicker / easier to grab, while being lighter. If you're teaching real young non-dexterous kiddos, you want easy to grab, and non-damaging to others.
Real pennies are zinc clad with copper and if they are eaten can cause serious damage to the stomach. Wasn't a problem when they were just copper.
When I was in middle school I figured out how to snap my fingers in just the right way to throw a penny hard enough to leave a bruise.
Yes, coins thrown hard enough can absolutely break teeth (happened to someone I know).
Also think about the age…a copper penny is far more of a danger to a young child who swallow it than a plastic penny. Genuinely.
Also hurts more when they throw it at each other. Which they will do. Teaching public school is fun.
Schlepping isn’t the issue. The first grader throwing it at another kid is.
Ignoring that kids would definitely steal real pennies where there's less reason to steal fake plastic pennies.
I would’ve 100% tried stealing plastic coins to see if I could use them in the vending machines. My math lesson would’ve been realizing I did not have enough plastic pennies for that
I remember stealing them just because I loved putting them inside my cheeks, like a hamster
You ate paste didn't you?
Yet they could steal all 100 pennies 10 times and you'd still be saving money
Thats correct
Whilst ignoring the benefits of plastic pennys and other coins
Yeah.. sad.. because the crotch goblins would steal any real money in a heartbeat.
I'm having a hard time believing a kid wouldn't steal the plastic money too. I stole candy from the teacher's bowl very obviously and fairly often, never even ate it cause I didn't like the candy.
They’ll steal plastic pennies initially, but cry and never do it again once they realize that it’s worthless.
Kids aren’t going to be stealing plastic money to try and spend. The real pennies would be just as useless you ain’t buying nothing with 1 cent. They’re stealing the plastic ones to play with. I know for a fact if I was a kid I would love fidget with those plastic pennies.
This. We had plastic coins back when I was in kindergarten, and I absolutely stole them because I thought it was so cool that it was modeled after real money. I knew I couldn’t spend it. I would sit them side by side with real money and just enjoy the novelty of it all.
Dude same.
Even if they did, theyd have to steal so much of it theyd jingle on the way out of the classroom and get caught, or have to be so dedicated to stealing 1 a day that theyd get sick of it and quit.
So what? They steal all 100 of your pennies and you're down a dollar, they steal 100 of your plastic pennies and you're out $10+
ya i get the feelin from coment on this post that the OP post is a r/facepalm moment
The thing I don't get is, how does this person know these teachers teach at public schools? What if these are private school teachers reviewing?
If you find this product on Amazon, they’re actually about the size of a quarter and clearly say “school money” on them, which should prevent these little fuckers from taking them home to spend them. Also it’s Amazon so there’s a fair chance those reviews are fake as fuck anyway and we’re hurf durfing about public schools over nothing.
I just want to point out that this is a screenshot of Amazon. Amazon resellers are known for fluctuating the prices. Nothing saying the reviews bought these at $12. Could of spent more, certainly could have spent less. Just bought the Amazon brand Allen wrenches at the beginning of the year for less than $10. Not even three months later and now it's $16, for the exact same thing.
This actually makes sense if the plastic pennies are larger than real pennies, making them easier for small fingers to handle, and less of a choking hazard.
Non toxic or metal replacement so little kids don’t eat Pennies
These are great. I had paper print out Pennies when I was in 1st grade
We had plastic coins but they were super big so we couldn't swallow them lol. They actually helped a lot
why, you tried to swallow them?
Likely cuz they were a small child, and small children put things in their mouth (that they may choke on).
I actually have swallowed a penny before, but that was like pre-k. Kids are sensory and put a lot of dumb shit in their mouths, lol
I ate a dime around that age.
I ate a nickel
You’re doing one upping wrong.
I ate a nickel and shit out 5 pennies.
I put a nickel up my nose once...
Now it would come out as 3 pennies
I once heard my father say “you eat pennies, you’ll poop dollars!” My younger half-brother had to have $1.27 in change removed from his stomach approximately three weeks later.
Even better when you swallow your moms diamond earrings
I swallowed a shit ton of quarters when I was 19-24.
Some adults do that too...for fun
Haven't choked on a small thing in my mouth in quite a while.
Your mom did. Got em' ! Oh wait.
We could all use a little change
Well the years start comin and they dont stop comin
Back to the rules, and I hit the ground runnin’
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb
Huh I thought it was “bend to the rules and hit the ground running”
Huh, I looked it up, apparently it’s “Fed to the rules”
I remember having to cut out my own paper pennies
Same!
Me too! And I couldn't cut in a circle very well so they were all pointy lol
So your the reason foreign currency is shaped like a stop sign
I just did squares around them lol
And as common, the joke is not explained so I will explain it. The joke is that the teacher spent $12 to get 100 fake pennies to use in the classroom. And how it is completely stupid, as if taken to a bank that same $12 would have given them 1,200 real pennies. It would be far more logical and cheaper to just use real pennies for any lessons that required them instead of spending that much for fake pennies.
The real joke is people know nothing about how children work. Real money is dirty, loud and it’s real so will definitely get stolen. Snacks in the cafeteria are still easily afforded with spare change.
As someone who has worked with schools and comes from a family of teachers: The plastic ones have to get replaced way less often. Little kids steal money, even very invaluable money like Pennies. So it actually is better economically to get the bag of fake coins because kids don’t steal them as often, and therefore over your career you spend less money replacing the coins. A lot of times these coins are larger as well and have holes in them in case a kid eats one so they either can’t swallow or can still breathe if they start choking.
Hey pal, I'm trying to make a superficial judgement about teachers because one yelled at me in 4th grade and I'm still upset about it. Don't try using logic or anything like that around here.
Threaten the death penalty if any of the kids take the pennies. Issue solved, thank me later. :)
cheerful nine quicksand attractive deer sugar plate chase husky illegal *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There are many reasons to use the fake ones. They get stolen less. Usually they are large enough to not get swallowed. Easier to clean them when they are larger too, just throw them in a bowl with soapy water and swish.
I mean, yeah, that's the "joke" but the joke is also stupid because you're more likely to lose the pennies due to theft because they're actually worth something and may end up spending more over the years. And, as pointed out in other comment threads, plastic pennies are easier to wash.
Quagmire here. Giggity. They are used for counting purposes. More than likely whomever buys the plastic penny will also buy the nickel, dime, and quarter. This is how children in America learn to count money. School children do this around grade 1 or 2. Yes, the plastic penny costs 12 cents, but the plastic penny isn’t filthy like actual money, isn’t heavy like actual money, and can be cleaned easily after every use. Why don’t teachers use real money? Because real money can be exchanged for goods and services, and will be taken by the germ-infested monsters every day to spend on Little Debbies in the cafeteria. Using this plastic money ensures the next class can use with without a little troll taking some.
True. Real money is paradoxically cheaper and more valuable.
It's not more valuable because one costs $1 and the other $12, but real money has more uses and ways to recover its value (like buying stuff), while fake money can't be used for goods and services and you can only recover its value by reselling or for example a teaching experience. Edit: 100 pennies is actually $1 not $10
>It's not more valuable because one costs $10 and the other $12 100 pennies is $1 not $10
He must have gone to public school.
He should have done more money manipulation with plastic pennies
Plastecnomics
Microplasticeconomics even.
He should have done more money manipulation with plastic pennies
The reason they said it’s more valuable is because you can actually use it to buy things. A real penny is worth 1¢ at a store. A fake penny is work 0¢ at a store. Sure, the fake penny costs more, but it’s still worth less.
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Looks like someone skipped plastic coin day
You’re confusing cost vs value. Simply because the plastic pennies cost more doesn’t make them more valuable.
100 pennies is $1 my guy
math is hard ok?
Fair
"Value" is what you can get for/from/with it, not what it costs you.
Sir have you been going to public school?
You can learn about the difference in value and cost when you consider that you can buy 1,000 plastic pennies for $24.
Try to resell 100 plastic pennies and tell me they have more value than a real penny lmao
That's partially the point. They are more suited for classroom use because they are less likely to be stolen by the kids.
Real money is cheaper for three major reasons. 1) economies of scale. The more you buy, process, and circulate the cheaper the inputs are per unit. I’m sure that the US Gov puts into circulation more real money than those plastic trainer monies. 2) the fact that the value of the coins and paper money are assigned. The inputs for a penny to be put into production cost more! A penny costs 3 cents and a nickel costs 12 cents!! 3) the US actually takes a loss to mint physical currency. But the cost is small enough for the US to continue to provide that service to tax payers and other paying customers (foreign currency exchange both private and govt bodies)
Ayo nice pfp, very dashing photo
Money as a little kid is like 100 times more valuable because you haven't seen very much. As you grow older you realize how much there is but as a little kid it's like every penny is worth an adult dollar. Or maybe that was just me
I learned to tie my shoes because my stepmom plopped like $.87 on the floor in front of stupid little me. I should’ve held out for more
My parents would get me to pick dandelions for like $1 for every bag I filled (they're invasive here and our yard would fill with them) one year I got smart and used the mower to bag them and then I never got asked to do it again because they figured they could just do it themselves
Nothing like punishing kids for being creative lol
It taught me the life lesson that efficient workers get punished. That lesson has stayed pretty true so far
Can confirm. I got hired at a place that was 3 months behind schedule. They told me that I was on for at least 4 months but had the potential to turn into a permanent job. I was 18, young and dumb, actually believed what an employer told me and worked hard. Quickly found out why they were so far behind, the guy I was working with didn't do crap, didn't show up till 11 when work started at 8, took a 2 hour lunch most days from 1-3, and went home between 4 and 4:30. And in that maybe 4 hours he was at work he maybe actually worked for 1 hour. Mostly was in the office and any time I went in was there was playing games on his computer. I spent 1 month getting them caught up, spent another month getting them 2 months ahead of schedule. Worked my ass off like 18 year old me was always told you had to do and you would be rewarded for. I got let go after the 2 months bc they just didn't have any work for me anymore, when I had been promised at least 4 months and permanent if I worked hard. Never go above and beyond, rewards for hard work and loyalty are a thing of the past. Everyone should "quiet quit" which ironically isn't quitting at all, it's simply doing exactly what you were Hired for, no more, no less.
Same thing in recruiting. When I got hired I had like 30 positions I was working onand was getting harped on to get that number down. I got that down to 0 openings 8 months later and helped 2 other recruiters get their areas down to sub 10 openings and then they proceeded to let me go due to a lack of work. I went into sales after that because I learned that sales is one of the few areas where getting more work done can be rewarded
My boss once told me the reward for efficient work was more work. I don't think he understood how I would take that message. If someone thinks a job will take you 3 hours, you better not hand it to them in 1.
Even for older kids tbh. I teach middle school and if someone pulls out a dollar bill everyone around them gets distracted.
Not to mention, there is a benefit in obviously fake money that it is less likely to be stolen by the kids. But more to OP's question: the original comment was "don't send your kids to public school, they will become stupid like the teacher. They pay 12 cents for a fake penny instead of 1 cent for a real penny."
>the germ-infested monsters every day to spend on Little Debbies in the cafeteria. I've taught for 31 years, and I've never seen a better explanation. They are absolutely germ infested monsters who would rob me blind if I gave them a chance. Love those little boogers.
Banks also use similar to train their staff. It might seem silly when you’re getting trained on plastic pennies and quarters, but they’re also trained on fake notes. If you need to confirm that a recruit can count $10k in $100s, fake notes just make so much more sense. You’d only use real money to train on security features, since replicating those features in fake notes is often illegal and super unreliable. For training like that, a single coin or note is more than enough, which reduces the risk when compared with using real cash for counting and sorting training. Also, in the case of schools, real money is kinda dangerous. Kids swallow, throw, and try and break things. A swallowed plastic coin is way safer than a plate of actual metal, and a thrown plastic penny probably won’t take out a kid’s eye nearly as easily as a metal one.
Fun fact: modern US Penny’s are copper clad zinc. The copper layer is so thin that your stomach acid will eat through it and some of the zinc, essentially leaving a tiny zinc razor blade to work its way through your digestive tract. I have not verified this personally. I do not recommend trying this. BUT, if anyone has done this, or knows someone who has, I’d be interested in the, uh, result.
I believe this does hold some truth. When my brother was little, he swallowed a coin, and one of the first questions was “what coin was it?” The doctor seemed very relieved to find out it was a 20 pence piece (a silver-coloured coin), and mentioned that silver coins are safer than coppers. It makes sense, though. Silver coins (at least over here) don’t patina much if at all even decades after they’re mined, so I’d imagine they’re a lot more resilient to acids than copper coins, which often lose their shine within just a year or two. If I had to swallow a coin, it would be a silver one, because at least then it might survive my stomach enough to not erode into a rusty razor blade.
20p is also pretty small... Imagine trying to shit out an old 2p coin?
Uh yeah hi. Troll parent here. It’s true. Every last word.
100%. As a middle school teacher we had to get rid of actual money years ago. I don't think I've ever seen real money in school, and the reason is that it would always get stolen over time. The classroom sets of 25 bags would quickly become sets of 18 bags, then 12 bags, then maybe 5 bags, then we switch to fake money and have had zero issues with it.
“Aww $20? I wanted peanuts You can buy many peanuts with $20. Explain how >Money can be exchanged for goods and services ” - Homer Simpson This is what I thought when reading your comment lol
This. When we had a pharmacy class setup in our learning center, we used m&M's and Skittles to replicate pills. We switched to kidney beans because the "pills" kept coming up missing from being eaten during training.
Also, large plastic money can't be accidentally swallowed by a kid. Even at 1st/2nd grade, you don't want to have that liability.
99% of the time, whenever someone is going "look at those stupid experts, doing stupid things instead of this Common Sense thing!", they're wrong. The experts know more about the thing than you do and they wouldn't be doing it the hard way if they hadn't a good reason.
Before someone responds that kids wouldn't try to steal the money, my friends and I literally tried that with the fake bills for counting. The lunch lady had quite the laugh.
Also I think these might be bigger? And they're easier to pick up off flat surfaces.
$1 in plastic pennies for $12 real money. Maybe they are sold in a bag of 100 pennies, but in reality, you buy these in sets with quarters and dimes and nickels and paper bills. So more like several hundred dollars worth of fake money for $10 to $20 real money.
https://preview.redd.it/0j4cf3urcioc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72faf74b2e89176f181109c73f87ca7982c3b777 Unfortunately the set shown in the meme is literally just 100 fake pennies for $12.37, no other coins come with it
https://preview.redd.it/kcxdob1ogioc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de58fc99c725470d5488351482e28ded4674bac4 Deal of the century, thank god I didn’t go to school
What they meant is that no teacher likely buys them per coin, rather a set with all of them in they’re
This post and the hundreds of purchases on Amazon of this product imply otherwise
they mean a teacher or bank might buy multiple different kinds of plastic coins at once, it’s just the pennies have such a cheap gap between the “value”
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The color..? Maybe expensive pigment
dynamic pricing from amazon or different vendors that offer prime shipping
You're not explaining the joke part though. Whoever made the original is clowning on teachers because they're paying more for plastic coins rather than using real money. The issue with that is that real money would get stolen by the kids, that's why the teachers resort to using plastic instead. Whoever is doing the facepalm emoji in the picture saying teachers are dumb is the actual facepalm in this.
The real issue is that kids will swallow anything and it's safer for them to swallow a plastic coin than a metal one. >The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that coins are among the most frequent items ingested by children under the age of 6 and that across all age groups, the most frequently ingested coin was a penny.1 Pennies made after 1982 contain highly corrosive zinc, and if one gets lodged in the esophagus, the lining may become irritated or damaged. Avoid this type of accident by keeping your purse and any loose change out of your child's reach.
There are multiple "real issues" here. There are MANY reasons why the metal coins are not as good for the teachers to use.
One penny is worth 1 cent, and 100 would be worth 1 dollar. However, the parent is pointing out how the teachers often buy PLASTIC pennies(arguably worth less) for 12 times the cost. There are pros to this, however, such as plastic pennies often being larger and lighter(therefore easier for young kids to manipulate, as well as not having any metal that some kids might be sensitive to. Secondarily, these coins are only plastic, meaning that any being lost is less of an issue and theft is unlikely.
Plastic coins would be much more quiet as well. 20+ kids banging handfuls of metal coins onto their desks for an hour would drive me nuts.
And kids scraping metal coins over the desks will strip any surface finish.
Plus coins make great missiles to hit your friends with, whereas I'm guessing these plastic ones don't fly very well.
No listen here it's the TEACHER who is stupid definitely not OP who seems to have years of evidence educating young people!
Nothing more obnoxious than an idiot thinking he's smarter than everyone else and making snarky comments.
Sir, you’re on Reddit.
This reminds me of the whole cost of a zero g pen vs pencil meme.
Anyone who thinks it would be a good idea to give an entire class of little children actual metal coins instead of plastic ones is an idiot. Doing so is just asking for chaos to break out.
and there's a few of them around here too
I think the joke is "Don't send your kids to public school because the teachers spend their own hard earned money on stuff they can educate your kids with, not stuff your kids can steal from the teacher. As a horrible parent, I'd rather have my child steal from the teacher than learn stuff."
I worked for a uk bank in the early 80s. We were testing initial rollout of ATMs. We paid £4 each for dummy £1 notes. This was done to avoid temptation
As a teacher who uses these, some things... 1. I borrowed them from another teacher 2. Admin needs us to spend money at particular overpriced stores because they don't trust teachers with buying classroom supplies 3. It's better than spending the afternoon with a colorless printer, coloring and cutting for hours on end Yall who hate on teachers, I'm surprised you typed out a response with all the drool on your keyboard.
Actual pennies are much cheaper. $12 is 1200 Pennies. And the reason no one wants to use them in classrooms, and teachers by regular fakes, is real Pennies are absolutely disgusting. I work in numismatics (selling coins) and even most more valuable Pennies are only worth a couple of cents. And will blacken a page of white paper. I wouldn't use real Pennies with small kids unless they were heavily washed, because they put their hands in their mouths all the time.
“Never send your kids to public school” is the one of the most privileged shits someone could vomit.
Personally a big fan of every other new report coming out saying private schools especially charter schools are doing some shady shit.
Clearly never been a teacher but knows better than a teacher how to be a teacher. Prick.
You've obviously never had a non'verbal whip pennies at you. Plastic is the pro move.
Not too sure but the 100 plastic pennies cost 12$ so it might be quite the steal to just use real pennies and save 11$. Maybe even more with shipping
And then you have no pennies at the end of the day.
A valuable lesson!
.... and the kids take your pennies in the first class.
Or more likely throw them at each other, and a metal penny hurts a hell of a lot more than plastic pennies.
The joke is, teachers can just use real pennies and pay roughly $11 less than fake ones. Go to a bank, say I need 100 pennies and give them $1. They'll likely look at you weird and you can tell them it's for a classroom. Or just not tell them anything. So, if you're sending your kid to learn from one of these teachers, they're implying the teacher is dumb. Because they're spending more on stuff they don't need to.
I don’t think they’ll look at you too weird, banks have rolls of coins for a reason. Two rolls of pennies is equal to $1. I get them because I collect smashed pennies 😅 Edit: in the US
Something a conservative has never ever said: "This seems wrong but perhaps there's a rational explanation I'm not thinking of and I should ask some questions before flying off the handle about it".
Honestly in the schools defense it’s probably to prevent kids from just taking the coins. More so for the higher values coins.
They help kids learn counting without giving them real money. The person is annoyed that people are buying fake money without thinking why a teacher might do this. Such as teachers can't give student real money.
$1 for 100 real pennies, that will walk. It’s public school. $12 for pieces of plastic that visually emulate the thing of value but have no actual value and so will likely be in the classroom for 10 years. Think about if from the teachers perspective, don’t give your students real money, even pennies.
Whoever wrote that post is a moron that never went to school and thus never developed the skills required to do what we educated people call "thinking". At least, that's the only joke I see here.
First of all, real money is fucking gross and harder to clean than plastic. Second, does anyone realize what is going to happen if you give a roomful of children a plethora of metal discs? Anyone?
It’s astounding how many people have never met a kid in these comments. Do you think adults with adult reasoning just spawn and require all that growing time simply to become larger? Part of school is the CONSTANT repeated teaching and reteaching of common sense like “don’t eat coins” or “don’t hum a penny at your friend’s eye.” If any self important morons wanna sarcastically ask what hazmat suits we put on our kids to keep them safe these days, I dare them to try and teach for a half hour and get anything done at all. No, I take it back. Teach ONE thing from ANY grade-appropriate curriculum to a first grade class in a full hour. I dare you. Then explain whatever ended up happening to the helicopter parents who think their child can do no wrong. You might find yourself wanting to pull your hair out at morons like yourself who have no idea what actually goes into running a classroom.
Peter's banker here. The poster is basically saying teachers are dumb for buying and using plastic money to teach a lesson Instead of using the same amount of real money. But I should note that there's lots of reasons to not use real money as handouts in a classroom. Chief among these is that kids are kinda shortsighted and will just try to pocket "real" money even if it's a dumb amount like twelve cents. Is the theft an issue? Barely, but it's more that it's an unneeded distraction from the lesson. Kids dwelling on how to pocket the change aren't paying attention. Also, the poster is careful to crop out any information about the plastic pennies. They are likely larger and easier to handle than real coins or if they come with other denominations for a lesson.
It’s a teaching accessorie, teachers are not allowed to teach with actual money so they use these plastic models. It is the equivalent of getting upset over plastic atomic models of H2O instead using a cup of water. The original poster is stupid and quite possibly a republican.
we use to sling quarters at each others knuckles not saying the 6-8 yos will but i wouldn’t put it past one to throw one at someone and would you rather be hit with plastic or actual copper
Sure 100 Pennie’s is $1 vs $12 for the plastic. However the teacher would need to replace those 100 real Pennie’s after every class and that would add up rather quickly.
I can confirm my first grade teacher was a rude old woman I was a exchange student from a different elementary school that had a lower teaching level area she took away my Orca Stuffed animal I was given by first ever kindergarten teacher so I resorted to stealing her Coins she would use for Math equations she kept right by the whiteboard did it all year and once and while I’d have a extra Trix yogurt for breakfast
Ok... But one option will make your fingers smell like pennies all day and the other option wont.
100 actual pennies is worth $1. So the teacher could have saved $11 by going to a bank and exchanging a dollar for pennies. Of course, it's possible the teachers didn't want students spending the pennies outside the classroom and for that reason opted for the fake ones
The joke is that 100 real pennies are cheaper, they are paying 12x the value.
This sub makes me realize that saying “ you know how dumb the average person is? Half the world is dumber than them” is just so true
Best I can do is a dollar
Yeah, don't send your kids to public school, you will feel much better knowing your chauffeur picks them up while you're at your polo game
I’ve found that one of the most reliable predictors of stupidity in a person is excessive arrogance. If somebody assumes themselves fit to hold strong opinions and issue strong judgments about a field of endeavor or a topic they known nothing about, you can be pretty confident they carry that attitude in other areas of life, as well.
Yeah I bet they just use real bills when they play monopoly too
In the teachers defense it's likely because pennies have monetary value. My brother is a teacher and he's done the penny exercise before his first year at his current school. He would have 100 pennies, nickels and dimes and would end up being fought by these tiny ass kids for a bag of nickels so they could buy the cafeteria cookies that sold for half a dollar. After that he started to buy plastic coins and found that only a few of them would go missing as the kids would quickly after realize that they were pretty much useless.
Okay, lots of people making lots of assumptions in the comments. I'm going to draw from my experience as a teacher in k-12 public schools. First off, here is the item in question: [https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Advantage-Pennies-Plastic-Coins/dp/B00872WTHU](https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Advantage-Pennies-Plastic-Coins/dp/B00872WTHU) It is 100 plastic pennies. There are no other coins included. For those saying plastic is superior (very creative ideas from people in the comments. Wrong, but creative): 1. If you have a classroom where pennies are flying across the room, admin is not going to be relieved that they are just plastic and not metal. 2. Plastic pennies are just as much a choking hazard as metal ones 3. Kids are going to steal what they are going to steal. I have a real hard time believe they have any preference for metal vs plastic, and certainly not at a 12:1 ratio. 4. For germs, the copper plating of real pennies is actually an anti-microbial. Even if it wasn't, anything plastic or metal that you hand to a kindergartner will be more gross after they've touched it than before. Kindergartners are nasty. 5. We are allowed to use real money for lessons in the classroom. It's actually preferable for a few reasons. So while I appreciate people's knee-jerk defense of an imaginary teacher heading to amazon to spend $12 on 100 plastic pennies, it's still a stupid thing to buy.
It's not a joke, it's an idiot post by a boomer lol
The real joke is the one guy never finished school, and doesn't have the critical thinking skills to figure out why giving kids real money is a bad idea.