School supplies guilt trip

I read an article today about school supplies and how teachers often buy things for their classrooms out of their own pockets.
I managed to go through the 1st through 12th grades and college without any of the stuff that teachers, parents and kids think they must take to school today.
I never owned a backpack. We carried our books stacked on top of our notebooks.I never used a calculator at school. We didn't take Kleenex, antiseptic gel, paper plates or anything else to school except pencils,paper and notebooks.
We went to the library at school to use dictionaries and encyclopedias. We learned how to research for tests using those materials.
I do understand that many of the new things in our society enable us to learn. I love my laptop and use it every day. However, I can add up a line of numbers in my head and multiply, divide and do fractions without a calculator. I think that our teachers are burdened with the idea that they must do more and more. They have to teach to satisfy FCAT scores.
Recently, in a well publicized trial, a young woman who was a friend of the deceased said that she is a senior in high school. However, she cannot read or write cursive. What kind of schools do we have?
I was in a store yesterday and right at the entrance there was a display. It had lists of school supplies needed and the lists were from different schools. Boy, what a guilt trip we put on parents and teachers. I suggest that we go back to the basics on a lot of things and concentrate on studying, not purchasing.