Sam Bortniker ’11
A&E Editor

It starts off with a harmless yellow plastic band in the shape of a giraffe. Then a pink cupcake band is found to accompany it. After that more bands in shapes such as a diamond ring, an alligator, a surfboard, a shark, an elephant, or a dinosaur are added to the mix.

Slowly but surely, Silly Bandz inch their way up students’ wrists. There are over 100 different shapes and they never seem to lose their form. It’s no wonder students can’t resist.

“I have 72 and I like them because they never lose their shape,” said Georgia Wright, a third grader and avid Silly Bandz collector at Coleytown. Even though they are not allowed in class, Wright continues to bring the bands to school so she can show them to her friends, play with them, and trade on the bus.

Wright is surely not the only elementary school student who has this many Silly Bandz. The rubber bracelets have become a craze at all five elementary schools in the Westport School District. However, the ban on Silly Bandz has barely slowed the trend, as students are still continuing to build their collection.

“I have 149,” said Molly Kopp, a fifth grader from Coleytown Elementary School.

“Children had 50 of them on their wrists at one time,” said Coleytown first grade teacher, Jane Garard.

Many teachers began to notice the obsession expanding from students’ wrists onto their elbows. The Silly Bandz craze has also turned students into compulsive traders in attempts to collect the best bands.

Long Lots Elementary School is the first to make an official school-wide ban on Silly Bandz.

John Bayers, Principal of Greens Farms Elementary explained, “all of the schools are working hard to make sure the Silly Bandz do not interfere with instruction.”

In other schools across the district policies on Silly Bandz vary depending on how disruptive the fad is.

“We have directed our students to leave their silly bands at home,” said Long Lots Principal Rex Jones.

Jones, along with the Long Lots faculty, agreed to ban Silly Bandz due to the interference they were creating in the classroom, tears included.

Lesa Tishler, a Coleytown kindergarten teacher, associates Silly Bandz with tears. Tishler found that her kindergarteners would cry when there was a bad trade, when the bands broke, or when bands were lost. These events distracted the students from the lessons and Tishler decided it would be easier to just forbid Silly Bandz in class.

As a whole, Long Lots banned Silly Bandz, while at other elementary schools the decision lays in individualteachers’ hands. Bayers explained, that depending on the extremity of the trend and its interruption in the school day, schools will combat the obsession differently. Not all classrooms at Coleytown have forbidden Silly Bandz as Tishler has.

“No bands in the classroom or at recess,” said Jane Garard, a first grade teacher at Coleytown. Garard and the other first grade teachers noticed that students’ focus would often deviate away from learning to Silly Bandz.

Greens Farms Elementary has yet to ban Silly Bandz, but teachers have taken initiative to solve the problem independently.

Anne Murphey, a kindergarten teacher at Greens Farms, enforces a rule allowing students to “wear them until, or if, they become a distraction to themselves or those around them.” Murphey takes away children’s Silly Bandz privileges if they begin to count how many they are wearing or trade them.

Popular fads have infected elementary schools before.

“Anything you can collect and trade seems to be popular,” says Garard.

Pam Syndercomb, a former third grade teacher, now the current technology teacher at Coleytown, says that several years ago CES had to ban Pokemon cards from the classrooms and from recess because the students’ obsession with collecting and trading was out of control.

Murphey noticed Silly Bandz brought out a competitive edge in her students. Students would show off all of their collections while carrying around bags filled with Silly Bandz. During class she has witnessed students counting the amount they were wearing and seeing who had more.

“Personally, I think their cute,” says Karen Toth, a math support teacher at Coleytown, whose daughter attends the first grade there too. She saw how kids might find the Silly Bandz fun, but as a teacher understands the distractions they may create during class time.

Unfortunately, elementary school students have not exemplified ample behavior that indicates they can handle the Silly Bandz trend as well as concentrate in class.

Click here to read Eliza Hamburger ’10’s opinion piece on Silly Bandz.