I've started a collection of my own office equipment.
When I moved into this room six years ago, there was no pencil sharpener. I bought one from Staples with a suction cup on the bottom, but the performance was poor. A student told her mother there was no pencil sharpener, and I was brought an electric one, which I used the rest of the year, but the sound of the motor grinding away was too much to deal with while I was lecturing, so I retired it that June.
I could have ordered one from the district warehouse, but deep down inside I didn't want one like all the other ones, so I want shopping on eBay. I actually wound up buying from a site called Etsy.com, and this one has all the uniqueness I could hope for.
First, it's retro, and I love retro, and I enjoy exposing young people to retro. Second, it's quirky: it holds the pencil and pulls it in with springs, so that your free hand can steady the sharpener, which stands on a foot, and isn't screwed to the table. Third, it presents a new experience for kids, who must walk up, fiddle with it, try to remember my demonstration, and conquer the challenge to sharpen their pencil, so ti provides a little entertainment.
Recently the paper cutter in the faculty lounge fell apart, and the new one, with all its safety features, is a nuisance, so I bought my own. It looks huge in the photo, but it's only 12" x 12", so is perfect for 8 1/2 x 11 sheets.
By then, momentum was working. I found a very unique stapler: one that doesn't use staples (with the green base, pictured w/ the hole punch). It punches a little slot, and cuts out a little tab, and folds the tab back and through the slot. The result is much like the little tearning/folding trick kids use to attach two sheets of paper together. It's the only stapler kids have access to, but they like it.
Ah, the hole-punch. I have a little one in my room that punches maybe 8 sheets at a time, but that's impractical for whole class sets of papers. There's an electric one in the office that will punch 15 sheets or so, but it stopped working recently. Now I have my own, it's very retro, and can accommodate about 30 sheets at a time. This makes a huge difference when I have 200 or 400 pages to punch. One pull of the lever and I've punched almost a class set. Sweet.
I know, they are little things, and I spent my own money on things I didn't, in a strict sense, need to buy for myself. But they bring a smile to my face, make me less dependent on the broken office equipment of the school, and add a uniqueness and personalization to my room (the kids only get to use the sharpener and the stapler; the cutter and punch are on a separate table with nothing else of student concern).
I'm thinking of collecting old typewriters to use simply as display pieces around the room: on top of bookshelves, etc. I can get them cheap. We'll see. Who knows what this might lead to…
