Zoe Armstrong – MET

What’s in my bag?

What’s in my bag? Well… turns out more than I thought! I decided to use my everyday school backpack for this activity.

In the centre of the image is my planning binder. On the front of it is a resource for trauma informed classrooms from a professional learning session that I took during my first year teaching. I keep it at the front of my binder to remind me that my number one goal as an educator is to ensure my students feel safe and loved in my classroom. I chose to centre my image around my planning binder because well, it tends to be the centre of my life. As a newer-to-the-profession educator, I am still struggling to find that work-life balance.

On the right side of the image is most of my technology. My Macbook, iPad and chargers, that travel with me everywhere I go just in case I have a moment to get a few things done. I would like to use my iPad more for personal use, like getting better at Procreate, however as of late it is mostly to take notes and catch up on twitter.

Above my binder is my University of Alberta pencil case, where I completed my BEd. This was something I was so proud to be able to purchase and use. Above my pencil case are a few new masks, I think we all know what these are for.

The left side of the image is a bunch of knick knacks, many of which I wasn’t even aware were in my bag!

1. My “Happy Birthdae Harry” wallet (I am a true gryffindor, through and through).
2. My Airpods that I like to use to call my Mom when I take my “mental health walks.”
3. A pair of sunglasses in case it’s sunny outside for my lunchtime supervision.
4. My school keys and rainbow lanyard so students subtly know I am a safe person to talk to.
5. Expo markers and flair pens because after all, I am a teacher.
6. Some throat lozenges because you never know when that throat is going to go!
7. A Walmart receipt and an old volleyball lineup card from coaching.
8. My favorite perfume (You by Glossier)
9. A small bottle of advil because I tend to get migraines every once in a while.
10. Three stones that a friend bought me for. A rose quartz for unconditional love, a tourmaline black for protection and a sunstone for joy and personal power.

I would consider many of the items inside my bag to be text technologies. The obvious, my Macbook and iPad. Though similar, they promote different forms of creativity for me. I use my Macbook to create presentations, resources and respond to emails. My iPad is great for scrolling twitter and taking notes. I love the pencil feature and prefer to create mind maps, drawings and doodles with it. My planning binder is less “high tech” but a text technology none-the-less. It keeps me organized and on top of what I need to do each day with my students. Though everything in that binder was, at one point, digital, for me they are items that need to be printed. I attempted to have my planning binder on my iPad this year but immediately got overwhelmed that I couldn’t see my whole week at once. My Airpods are also a text technology that promote oral text. Through them I listen to podcasts, my favorite artists and the voices and stories of my loved ones.

The items in my bag display that I am privileged enough to engage with multiple literacies in my everyday life. My planning binder, Macbook and iPad indicate that in multiple different forms, I get to read and write. They also indicate that I am a digitally literate person. I have the skills required to use these pieces of technology. The Airpods indicate that I get to listen to information and share it with others. Even the volleyball line-up card shows that physically, I am literate enough to share my knowledge of a sport with others. The trauma-informed resource shows that I remain conscious of my cultural literacy. Knowing that I have my own needs and that those needs will be different for every single student, every single day walking through the door of my classroom.

This is a photo of my bag. It’s a backpack but has a long strap that can be worn over the shoulder too. The backpack part was very important to be because I am definitely a function-first kind of gal. It was my first-ever real leather purchase. The most I had every spent on a bag. I was hoping it would allow me to stand out a bit from all the other 450 backpacks that walk the halls on students backs. It is also designed and created by a local business in the Edmonton area. It’s a sophisticated bag that I was hoping would help me to seem more like an organized professional. All things considered I am pretty organized, and I am a professional but the reality is that the outward appearance of my bag does act as a shield to the chaos that is sometimes occurring internally.

I enjoyed reflecting through this exercise. I lug this bag around with my every. single. day. The items inside of it are not by any means the most important things in my life, however in my career, they are items that I could not be successful without.