What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 1

While working in my office over the weekend, I happened to be digging through one of my desk drawers looking for a particular doo-dad for a project I was working on. I was struck by the number of strange things I keep in my desk, and it got me thinking about what teachers keep in their desks and why.

Of course, there are the usual suspects: pencils, pens, erasers, scissors. There are probably a few oddities in our desks though--objects with stories of their own that have been placed in the drawer for a particular reason...or maybe for no reason at all, and now are just long-term residents.

My right-hand desk drawer...

My left-hand desk drawer...

And so, a sudden burst of inspiration: what if we told some of the stories of the things we keep in our desk? Does this help show a bit about who we are as educators? About the shaping influences in our backgrounds? Maybe even about our personal philosophies of education?

I figure I'm going to tell some stories here--stories about the things in my desk, why they are there, and perhaps what they say about me. I'm going to do this throughout the month of February. You're welcome to read along, and I hope you'll share some stories about what is in your desk drawers too!