My name is Leighton Chiverton and I am a grade 8 teacher in Saskatchewan. I’m particularly excited to take this course as it marks the end of my time at the MET program.
For my “What’s in your bag” exercise I chose the bag that I take to work most days. This one had a few extra things in it as I was away coaching at a volleyball tournament this weekend. I’ve had this bag as a faithful companion since I was in my first year of university in 2010. It has been with me to all over the place including England, Greece, Morocco, and Thailand. I worked in Saskatchewan Fire Management for a few years and it went with me to B.C. and the Northwest Territories for fire operations as well as all over Saskatchewan. Until I began this exercise, I had not actually realized how this bag has actually been a fundamental aspect of my life the last thirteen years until now. I am strangely nostalgic about this bag now.
On the left hand side of the photo, I have my work laptop and its’ charger. I brought it with me this weekend to the tournament with the intention to get some extra work to alleviate some of the pressure of getting everything in my life done on Sunday. This did not happen. It did make for an excellent YouTube viewing device while I was on hallway supervision of my athletes at the hotel.
In the top left of the photo is my coffee cup. This was a gift to me from a former student. The “Chivy” in the cup is the nickname most students call me by. I feel that “Chivy” and that cup represent the relationship that I have been able to build with my students over the years. I teach in a smaller town and it is not uncommon for me to be out and about and hear the familiar bellow of, “CHIIVVYYYY!” from a former or current student trying to get my attention usually followed up by getting to catch up with someone I may not have heard from in a while.
Next to my cup is a stick of deodorant. This is entirely because I teach PE quite regularly and is tied directly to the shirt and shorts on the right of the photo. The blue shirt bears the logo of my school and is the color of the house team that I am a part of at our school. The shirt represents a connection that I have to the school and to my students as well. There is quite a bit of healthy competition between the students and staff based on the current standings of house teams. I always make sure to have a house shirt with me so that I can jump into intramural activities and cause some chaos with the kids.
The yellow fold up clip board is my coaching clip board. I take it down the road with me every weekend that I go to a tournament because it contains everything that I need for the weekend including the tournament draw, athlete list with jersey numbers, rotations, stats, emergency contacts for kids, parent driver list, and hotel room lists. The pen that is attached to the clipboard is a click pen. This is entirely because clicking the pen is my way of dealing with anxiety in the middle of games. I regularly blow up pens from clicking them too much on weekends. This was my second pen from the weekend. The clipboard is bright yellow on the outside and black on the inside because those are the colors of my school’s team.
Next to the clip board is my ‘tupperware’ which is actually a Boston Pizza take out box. Unfortunately, BP’s no longer sends this box out with their take out orders. A shame for those of us balling on a budget.
The little silver tool I have is actually a bike multi-tool that I carry with me because I bike to work most days and it is nice to be able to repair things on the fly. I have also used that tool to repair desks, student toys, lockers, and students’ bikes.
The item below the multi-tool is my can of “emergency tuna” that I carry to school in case I am hungry midday and need a snack. If you look closely at the front of my backpack you will see the faint outline of grass stain in the shape of a can of tuna. This is from the time I was riding to work and through a series of unfortunate events caused by a snapping chain, I was thrown over the handle bars onto my back on a neighbor’s front lawn. Fortunately, I survived with minor injuries and the greatest injury was to my bike which had a folded front fork, bent front disc, and snapped chain.
The final item in my bag is a bottle of acetaminophen. Unfortunately, I have been sick the past week and so I have been taking these to get through the day.
Text Technologies
My laptop is a clear piece of text technology. I use it daily at work and most weekends to prepare for my students, deal with attendance, search for ideas for my classroom, as well as communicate with parents, students, my colleagues, and my intern. This piece of text technology is incredibly valuable because without it I would not be able to do about 90% of my job these days. The modern teacher is more connected to and reliant on technology than ever. I would have a very hard time being successful in any capacity without that laptop. I am also a part of a pilot program to test this particular model of laptop out as I am well known for being a particularly ‘techy’ teacher and I use technology extensively in my classroom.
The second piece of text technology is more traditional. My clipboard is a piece of text that I fill with all kinds of information leading up to every tournament weekend. Every weekend I build myself a text with valuable information for the weekend. When I am not one of the drivers to the weekend’s tournament I am also regularly modifying the text either changing rotations or lineups based on how athletes have performed. While a digital version of all of that information may be easier to carry, I find the physical version of this information more valuable as it is more easily manipulated and modified as I need through the weekend. It is also very hard to misplace a bright yellow clipboard on a volleyball court.
This exercise was fascinating and made me really consider what it was that I carried with me and why. I had never really thought about my clipboard to extensively or why I had it with me every weekend until today. As I had said before, I could probably get away with simply using my cellphone every weekend at volleyball but I far prefer the physical version of all the information I carry despite my affinity for technology. It also gives off a more professional vibe than constantly staring at a little screen on court to sort out line ups. I also find it interesting that despite sports not generally being associated with text, they require extensive amounts of text for them to function from rule books to athlete lists to score cards.