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Hello everyone,
For this activity, I have chosen to share with you my everyday bag that I carry specifically to and from work. This is the bag that I use the most often. I have a smaller purse but I only carry that when I am going somewhere and do not need as much stuff.
To give you a bit of context, I work in an elementary school as a grade 6/7 teacher. I work a full-time schedule and travel by car to and from work.
The items I carry are in the image below but are also listed here:
Essentials:
Work Laptop
Phone
Water Bottle
Smoothie Cup
Wallet
Car Keys
Work Keys and ID Badge
Lip Balm
Hand Sanitizer
Sunglasses
Non-Essentials:
Advil
Polysporin
Band-Aid
Tide-To-Go pen
Emergen-C
Sanitary pad
Pen
Hair Ties
For the first set of items, those are the ones I use on a daily basis. I need my work laptop for work as I rely heavily on technology when I am teaching, from displays and PowerPoints of lessons to everyday tasks like emails and communication with students and colleagues. I have two hydration bottles to stay healthy. My wallet, keys, and phone are essentials whenever I travel anywhere, which I do for work. My lip balm, hand sanitizer, and sunglasses are not extreme necessities and I could travel without them but I do use them constantly and therefore included them in the essentials category. I think that the first set of items are more standard items and honestly don’t say too many unique things about me. Most people will probably have a variation of those standard items in their bags more or less. The contents of my bag are usually only filled with essentials that I require to go from home to work. The other things that I need are usually kept in my home or in my classroom.
The second set of items I think are a bit more unique to me. The Advil and Sanitary pads say that I am a female and experience a menstrual cycle that I need to be prepared for. The Polysporin and band-aids I travel with because I tend to be quite accident prone and find having these things on hand to be quite useful, the same could be said for the Tide-To-Go pen as I often get stains on my clothing. The Emergen-C was given to me by a co-worker who I complained to about feeling low-energy.
The items in my bag can be considered texts because they speak to myself as a person. Some of the items, specifically, say that I have literacies in a couple of different areas. The sanitary pads say that I have knowledge, in some way, of what it means to be female and experience some of the experiences that go along with that. My laptop and work keys clearly state that I work at Surrey Schools, which shows that I have some literacies and connections in the education field. My smoothie may say that I have knowledge and literacies in the health field as I try to incorporate my daily intake of fruits and vegetables into my smoothie. My car keys also say that I have some road knowledge and driving literacy as I needed to pass a series of written and practical tests to obtain a license.
In terms of text technologies, the contents of my bag say that I rely heavily on technology for communication both in my personal life, with my phone, but also in my professional life with my work laptop. I am constantly sending texts or emails and getting notified on my phone and laptop of my students work progress on their digital portfolios so I need these items in order to communicate and engage with others.
I think that, in terms of basic essentials, this bag would be pretty similar 15 or 25 years ago, minus the technologies like a laptop and phone. I think that most people would carry essentials like a wallet and keys to go from place to place. But the technologies in my wallet like debit and credit cards with tap features as well as store membership cards have changed and evolved over time.
If an archaeologist or another person was to view this bag and try to gain context about the time period, I would say that my bag would do a decent job of showcasing essentials that are relevant to this particular time period. For example, car keys, wallet, phone, and laptop can all be dated to this time period. As technologies evolve in the future, keys to access buildings may become obsolete. With the invention of digital pay, a wallet may also soon be unnecessary to carry around.
My bag and the picture I chose of myself, I think go hand in hand and give context to the contents of my bag. Initially I was hesitant in showcasing some items in my bag, particularly sanitary pads but I as a grade 6/7 teacher who does health lessons with my class and encourages them to not be ashamed and to talk openly about these issues, I wanted to ‘walk the walk’ so to speak.