I Still Love Looking At School Supplies (Thoughts from a Retired Teacher)

When I was a little girl, I think I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I loved going to office supply stores and seeing rows and rows of pencils, pens, paperclips, note cards, lick on stars and notepads. My best friend, Nancy had a fantastic roll top desk with lots of sections and drawers. We spent many hours playing school and taking turns being either the teacher or the student. Nancy got to be the teacher more than me; but it was her desk after all.

I became a teacher and I still loved looking a school supplies. They weren’t as easy to find because I was looking for exactly what I needed (and things that caught my eye that I didn’t really need and bought anyway.)

After teaching about six years a few stores opened up especially for teachers. Walking into those stores was like seeing wrapped presents under a Christmas Tree. When my children were young they were not happy to go with Mom to teacher stores. They knew it would take forever as I walked up and down each aisle. 

Today, I went to a teacher store called ergAdoo with my son, who has now been a teacher over ten years. I had spent countless hours and dollars in that store. I am retired now but I laughed at the irony of waiting for him to shop. I still walked up and down the aisles and could not help being mentally transported back into the classroom and when I saw the the easel sized Scholastic Interactive Wipe Off Poem Book I knew that Once Upon A Time, a teacher named Jean, would have bought it.