Although we are not currently open to students, our building is still buzzing with activity as a construction project takes place. My classroom - which I skillfully stole - and my team’s office are being knocked through to create a pastoral hub.
Educational institutions love the word “hub”. In our newest building, one of the senior managers wanted to call a similar space the “support hive”, imagining the team as industrious and single-minded workers, no doubt. It should probably be named after the nest of a more pertinent creature - something permanently stressed and fatigued. Some sort of sloth/shark hybrid, perhaps.
The clearing out and packing up of our office was interesting, as all of my teaching aids were there. A photograph of a Barbie doll was sent to our team Whatsapp group with the caption: “Does this belong to anyone?!” I had used it for a session with graphic design students on classic product design, obviously.
Also, to my horror, I remembered that there was a carrier bag full of beer cans under my desk. I had been teaching a lesson on the codes that govern the packaging industry and we had been discussing small craft beer producers and their often whimsical and artistic can designs produced by graphic artists. Of course, this all sounds like a lie, but it’s right there in the scheme of work, honestly!
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Can you keep everything?
Everyone knows that if a strange object shows up in the offices, it’s a resource for my classes. My lesson on light refraction for photography students involves a prism, a crystal ball and a wine glass that is half filled (with water). I often store my guitar in our meeting room between music lessons, which has led to students believing that the room is some kind of permanent guitar locker…I think the most we’ve had in there is six. I did once plan to bring a dog in to do a session on pet photography, but health and safety kiboshed that. I’m still working on a loophole.
I had accumulated trinkets and cards and ex-students’ work, all of which were subjected to a ruthless culling. I had a pile of pencil drawings from a lesson on comic book art that I couldn’t justify keeping. OK, I kept one. Maybe three. Fine, I kept them all - they might be worth something one day! It was bittersweet clearing things out and seeing the incomplete student of the month list and the “things to remember” chalkboard listing the end of term as 3 April.
I brought home some things just in case we can’t start face-to-face teaching in the first week of September - my reward stickers, goodbye and good luck cards for the departing students, and my combined PowerPoint controller and laser pointer, which means I can share my screen and control my presentations from the garden if need be.
Still, you can’t keep everything. The beer cans went into the recycling and will have to be replenished somehow - I can’t deny students the opportunity to learn about packaging codes of conduct. That would make me a terrible teacher.
Kirsty Walker teaches at a college in the North West of England
