What My Desk Held:
Coffee mugs repurposed to hold pens and pencils.
Peppermints. Gum. Granola bars. Dry cereal.
My writer’s notebook.
Paper. Stacks and stacks of paper. Papers to fill out. Papers to pass out. Papers to grade. Copy paper. Lined paper. Colored paper. Construction paper.
A red stapler. Usually empty.
Kleenex. Hand sanitizer. Lotion.
Fake plants. Because I couldn’t keep real ones alive.
Tissue paper flowers twisted onto pipe cleaners, a gift from a student.
A tip jar. Also a gift from a student. Sometimes it even contained tips.
A set of plastic evil eyes, another gift from a student.
Books. Stacks and stacks of books. Classroom read-aloud books. Books I was reading myself. Book stacks for matchmaking. New books. Books that had been returned to the classroom library. Library books. Books students had loaned me.
A computer.
Lesson plans. On post-its, in my writer’s notebook, printed from the Internet, copied from teaching books.
Notes about improving lesson plans. On post-its, in my writer’s notebook, scrawled on the back of print-outs from the Internet. What didn’t work. How to tweak it next time.
Empty binders for the lesson plans I never managed to organize.
A student. Always a student sitting in my chair.
What My Desk Never Held:
Me
This post was inspired by Breathing In at Reflections on the Teche.
I thought for a minute you were writing about my desk! Ha!
I love this! Why is it that staplers are usually empty? The end was perfect!
This is AMAZING. It made me smile. What stories do the spaces we occupy tell? What an interesting question to ponder, and clearly, your desk tells the story of a teacher life well-lived. Wonderful.
This could have been my desk. Except I always had a little chocolate stashed somewhere!
I could definitely see this desk as my own. Add a few tic tacs, some dark chocolate, and a cell phone ready to snap a dozen pics. NICE!!
I have a red stapler too! This sounds a lot like my desk. Great rhythm to this post.
I’m seeing things about your desk that I forgot to say. Those endless stacks of books. I also forgot the quilt on my chair that a class made for me a long time ago. I’m honored my post inspired this post. So much about your desk tells us who you are. Like me, always the desire to be organized but missing the mark.
I love that a student is always siitting in your chair! that says a lot about you.
And I want to see your “evil eyes.”
A tip jar? Hmm. . . I don’t have a desk – when I did I never sat at it and it just contained mountains of paper. All of that paper . . . I do have some places in the room. The top of some shelves where a day plan, an orange bell (that one kid is always taking apart) and countless pens, highlighters and a stapler (with staples in it) sit. I also have part of a cupboard with coffee, mints, toothpaste and more pens, highlighters and book receipts get stuffed.
That last line is perfection.
Sounds a lot like my desk including the students at it, except we are out of tissues until I remember to take some from home (hopefully) tomorrow, the (real) plant is somehow still alive and on top of a bookshelf, and the folders of student work (all graded-first time ever) are so mountainous right now that I had to hide them under the desk! Also my lesson plans can never be found, only the handouts needed for the week.
Love this idea! Reminds me of a student-version of the poem called “Inside My Desk” from the collection “School Supplies.” So funny how much students love sitting at the teacher’s desk. That just never changes.
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I have a box full of sheet protectors waiting for the binders I have not yet managed to organize. Love this.