How Bad Would It Be to Just Throw It All Away?

A box of my super important office stuff.
This morning's tech inservice ended early so I had time to race home to meet the nurse so we could check and repack my son's wound. That left enough time to eat a lunch of Twizzlers and Diet Coke on the way to school. I was anxious to dig into my new office space and clean, throw-out, and re-arrange. Outside, it was pouring. Really pouring. I wrapped several piles of books in plastic bags and loaded them into my trunk along with some crates. I parked close to one of the side doors of the school and put my bagged-up books in my teacher cart and wheeled in the first of many loads. By the time I made it in the building, I was soaked. I squeaked down the long hallway, pulling my teacher cart behind me. When I reached my office, I flipped on the switch and stood in the doorway, dripping. Before I could even bring any of my own stuff in the room, I would have to go through the bookshelves and purge dozens of ancient speech exercise books. I left my own junk in the hallway and started unloading the bookshelves. At first, I considered each resource manual. I paged through them thinking about whether or not it contained anything I might use during the coming school year. When I started to find my own name written on the inside covers of some of the resource books I began pitching most of them into a large plastic storage bin. Half of these speech drill books were mine when I was a speech therapist for the district twenty years ago. Good grief.



7 comments:

  1. I think it's always good to just go through all your stuff and throw things away, especially if you haven't touched it for years! It's always hard to let go of some teacher stuff, but I've learned to let go! I'm all for clearing the clutter...I hope you are enjoying settling into your office and getting ready for school to start! :)
    --jee young

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  2. I am a big saver of old teacher manuals and even collect old basal readers; however, this year, in a move to a new classroom and in the desire to prepare for a "fresh" less cluttered room, I too pitched... LOTS and LOTS Of books, manuals, folders...I know I will miss some of them...but the truth is that if I need a resource these days, it is usually easier and faster to go on the internet than to try to find the book / page / resource! GOOD luck with your purge! I hope you too feel a lot "lighter" after you lessen your load!

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  3. Isn't that interesting? I'm a big believer in tossing out the old and looking ahead to begin anew. Unless, of course, there was that one not-to-be-ever-found-again book buried deep within the mess. At the end of the day, cleaning out is just plain time consuming. Good luck, Diana!

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  4. Hard to believe that you found your own name! Glad you took the hard stand & threw it all out. There are new days, & ideas, ahead. Have a great beginning to your year!

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  5. Ahh... cleaning out the clutter. I always wonder if I'll regret tossing old things. Then I remember that I usually find it online anyway.

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  6. I have my old classroom boxes in my basement. Boxes upon boxes of files I don't need, old charts, manuals, etc. It's been three years since I left the classroom and I still can't part with them. Not yet at least.

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