Minimalist and Teacher - The Ultimate Oxymoron

Minimalist and Teacher - The Ultimate Oxymoron

A couple of years ago, I became obsessed with a documentary entitled Minimalism. Although I have never been much of a hoarder, I definitely had things in my space that did not deserve the real estate. Whether it was old clothes I knew I never would wear again or some tchotchke I acquired on a random outing, I began to really see how stuff cannot only clutter your physical space, but also your mental space.

Often times those clothes we keep are really our hopeful selves dreaming of a day we will fit into a size 8 again or feeling guilty for spending $60 bucks on that blouse we wore once. I used to have a tremendous amount of guilt for giving away gifts that people had thoughtfully given me. Their love language may have been gift-giving, but I began to realize that mine was definitely not.

In a very maximalist way, I watched the Minimalism documentary several times. I listened to their podcast; I subscribed to their emails. I wanted to soak it all in because it was as if I was finally realizing why receiving gifts made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I listened to the audio version of Marie Kondo’s book and the great purge began. While I did not fully subscribe to any method of getting rid of things, I did make a concerted effort and even got my husband in on the action. And as only two competitive people can be, it became a game of who could get rid of more things. 

Every couple of months I would have this “Purge Surge’ and walk around the house ruthlessly throwing things into boxes. When I would make those trips to Goodwill, it felt exhilarating. I literally felt like I had lost weight after those outings.

But as a teacher, I knew there was a part of my world that would be significantly more difficult to pare down - my classroom.

When I started at my last school, I inherited the remnants of the room - all of those things that teachers of yore did not deem worthy enough of making the transition to their next space. Me being new to the school did not want to get rid of anything… 

“What if I NEED it?!” 

There were cabinets and drawers that had all sort of treasures (a word I use lightly) in them. I could not bare to throw anything away. Even after my first year, when I too, transitioned to a new space, I took everything. The following year, I moved again - and guess what - yep, I took everything.

Now, during this time, I had become obsessed with getting rid of my personal belongings, but the thought of getting rid of my classroom inheritance was just simply unthinkable. Then something hit me… 

Maybe I was avoiding doing other things (ahem, grading papers) or maybe I knew I would be moving into my 4th room in as many years (you read that right) - whatever the inspiration was, I welcomed it, followed its siren call, and opened the filing cabinet I inherited in year one.

I looked through everything. Every piece of paper. Every transparency (again, you read that right). And most of it ended up in the trash.

I knew that it would feel good, but to say that would be an understatement. It was nearly euphoric. As other teachers began packing their things for their room shifts, I wanted to share the gospel of purge - it felt that good.

And then I realized something - even if a teacher has a lot of “junk” by anyone else’s standards, we are not necessarily hoarders.

The number of things teachers pay for out of pocket is significant, so we often repurpose things to meet the needs of our students or make something come to life. So we keep the old worksheets (scrap paper!), we keep the cardboard (future stencils!), and whatever else we might find. We keep these things out of almost necessity.

I write this not to flip anyone into the minimalist way of life - minimalism looks different for everyone. But what I do recommend is to check in with your things every once in a while. Because if you are like me, maybe having those things around is taking up much more mental capacity than you think. And maybe, just maybe, freeing that up is worth the purge.