1.7 – What’s in your bag?

I’m Matt (he/him), a first generation Taiwanese-Canadian who’s at the end of his MET journey; ETEC 540 is my final course. Throughout the nine previous courses I have gained a fair number of tools, philosophies, and ideas to apply to my practice. While on the one hand I’m sad that this particular learning journey is almost over, on the other hand I’m looking forward to the extra free time (and let’s be honest, the pay bump). You can find more details about myself at the About Matt page.

I actually spent a fair amount of time selecting a bag for this assignment. Depending on the time of year and/or day of the week, my backpack can go through any of the following configurations:

• a measuring tape and a to-buy list as I’m constantly stopping by various stores to pick up items for the new townhouse I just moved into at the start of the month
• a mosquito face net, bug repellents, sun screen, snacks, hiking shoes, hiking poles, and a giant water bottle if I’m able to go on a hike
• a power-bar, two to three days worth of clothing, and some of items shown below if I’m travelling out of town for a BCTF conference

At the end of a bit of deliberation, I went with the “typical” configuration pictured below. This is what’s typically in my bag on a weekday up until a few weeks ago when I moved in to my new home. Going from top left to top right and then bottom left to bottom right, items include an umbrella, an accordion folder of student work I need to mark, laptop adapter, laptop, Compass card holder, foldable reusable grocery bag from T&T (an Asian grocery store chain), a Vancouver Canucks Demko mask, earplugs, wireless headphones, a Steam Deck (a portable gaming device), my BCTF Local Representative nametag, various coloured pens, my key ring (keys to four different buildings, a Health Canada bottle opener, T&T reward point card, and a bubble tea keychain accessory), and my wallet.

Prior to moving to my new home which is walking distance from work, most of these items, barring the umbrella, the mask, the earplugs, and the nametag would have been used on a daily basis. I commuted to work via public transportation, so the Compass card (Metro Vancouver’s public transportation payment system) holder, the headphones, and the Steam Deck were used to and back from work. I opted for a card holder rather than putting the Compass card in my wallet in order to have quick access rather than constantly fumbling with opening and closing my wallet. The Compass card is linked to my credit card and is set to recharge every time it is below a certain threshold of stored monetary value.

The accordion folder, different coloured pens, the laptop charger, and the laptop itself are for my job as a secondary teacher which was needed essentially every weekday. The reusable grocery bag helped whenever I needed to stop by a grocery story on my way home from work, and there is of course my wallet, filled to the brim with Starbucks gift cards in addition to the typical identification, credit cards, and some cash.

The name tag is kept in a zipped inner bag of my backpack and is used whenever I attend BCTF events. In a year I attend approximately eight different BCTF events such as Representative Assemblies where elected teachers from across the province propose, debate, and vote on various policies and recommendations. The Canucks mask is left-over from the COVID days when there was a mask mandate, though every now and then it’s still useful, such as me visiting my clinic or a Lifelabs location where there is still a social expectation to wear a mask.

Finally, the earplugs are for the occasional instances when I attend concerts, Canucks games, or supervise dances at my school. I’m at the age where I better protect my ears against further damage.

The contents of my bag gives a quick, accurate glimpse of my self-image. My bag and its contents show an array of interests and cultures I engage with such as the mask showing that I’m a Canucks fan or a sticker on my laptop revealing one of my pastime being anime. In addition, going with the latest definition of text being strictly something that is written, then there are several texts on these objects that allow people to infer various literacies (in the knowledge definition, rather than the read/write definition) I may have. My BCTF Local Representative nametag demonstrates that I’m an union activist, and therefore, should have some degree of familiarity with Robert’s Rules of Order. The video game stickers on my laptop allows one to correctly assume that I am familiar with video game jargon. The bilingual text of the reusable grocery bag states the name of an East Asian grocery store chain suggests that I should have some ability in identifying various Asian foods sold there that other Canadians may not be familiar with.

The Steam Deck is one of two items that allow me to access text technology in my bag. It allows me to access the various games on my account on the digital video games distribution service Steam. Most of my favorite game genres feature copious text: strategy games in which one navigates menus and read descriptions of buildings and units, story-rich roleplaying games in which characters engage in lengthy voice-acted dialogue, and visual novels which are essentially voice-acted choose-your-own-adventure stories that include background music and images. The Steam Deck illustrates my engagement with text in leisure activities.

My laptop is the other text technology item, and illustrates my engagement with text as a part of my profession. Used almost extensively for work and/or my union responsibilities (other than the occasional browsing of Reddit or engaging in games such as Wordle or Connections), my laptop contains all the texts I use in my lessons, whether they’re discussion prompts, handouts for students, videos that highlight certain concepts, and digital versions of quizzes and exams. In the past decade or so of my teaching career, I experienced the transition of teachers using whiteboards and overhead projectors as their main method of showing text to students to now where teachers find it extremely difficult to teach without a computer.

There are several points of interest that an archeologist studying the contents of my bag can note, which may allow them to infer more details about our society. One is the discrepancy between most of my teaching resources being digital, while students’ work are still mostly on paper. This may lead an archeologist to conclude that we as a society are still in the midst of transitioning from paper to digital, and through studying other artefacts of this time period, an archeologist may hypothesize that one key reason is the digital divide between different socioeconomic groups resulting in not everyone having a digital device.

Another point of interest is the mobility of devices: with my laptop and Steam Deck, I can conduct 95% of work related to my career, my union responsibilities, and my leisure activities anywhere. Though I have a desktop computer at home which I prefer to use over my laptop and Steam Deck for various reasons such as being connected to speakers and accessories such as keyboard and mice, I can perform the exact same task on the laptop and Steam Deck. This is further enhanced by cloud technology which allows for a a seamless transition of files across devices; on days when I decide to leave my laptop at work I can still create a handout on my home desktop computer and upload the file to a server so that I could access it at work, and the Steam Deck also has cloud servers so that progress on one device is automatically sent to the other.

The final point of interest an archeologist may note is that unlike most people, the bag I carry to work contains a device dedicated to leisure (the Steam Deck), potentially allowing them to reach a wrong conclusion that there is sufficient downtime as a teacher for me to use that device. Perhaps by studying it alongside the Compass card they would deduce that it’s for my commute on public transportation, which allows them to perform further analysis on the pros and cons of public transportation during this time period. If they had the ability to access the account associated with my Compass card they would obtain insight to my daily travels: what stops do I get on and off, and at what times. Studying that and contrasting it to artefacts from other bags could allow to reach conclusions about our society such as the fact that time is a precious commodity; most people prefer to get to work quicker by driving a personal vehicle, despite the monetary and environmental benefits that comes with choosing public transportation. Although the contents of my bag for almost the entirety of the past decade shows that I opted for the additional downtime and the monetary and environmental benefits of public transportation, if they were to study my bag now and managed to access the account associated with the bank card in my wallet as well as identification cards with a new address, they’ll see that I eventually opted to live within a walking distance from work.