Time Capsules

One thing I neglected to do when our school was built was to collect some artifacts and bury a time capsule.  Shoulda.  Woulda.  Coulda.   Recently, I saw an episode of M*A*S*H, where the members of the unit buried a time capsule with items that would tell those who opened it perhaps one hundred years later something about their installment in 1953.  Among those items buried was a broken fan belt from a helicopter representing a pilot’s courage, boxing gloves representing an alternate way for countries to settle their differences instead of using live ammunition, a fishing lure representing soldiers who never made it home, a bottle of cognac that would only improve with age and should be savored and a teddy bear.  That latter represented “All the soldiers who came here as boys, but left as men.”  This 255^th episode of M*A*S*H* was aired in 1983 and is touching.

What would you put in your personal time capsule?  What do you want others to know about you as a teacher, counselor, paraprofessional, clerical staffer, custodian, speech pathologist, school psychologist, lunch lady or administrator 100 years from now?  What would you like for generations in the future to know about what you did?  Serioously, think this one through.  What would you put in that capsule for people to open in 100 years?  Would it be your favorite novel that you taught?  Would it be a piece of sports equipment?  Would it be a musical instrument?  Would it be a diorama that represented an important historical event?  Would it be a copy of the food pyramid?  Would it be a lab tray?  Would it be the latest technological device?  Seriously, give that some thought and let me know. As we study history now about others, in a hundred years someone will be studying about us.  What will they learn?  Maybe it’s not too late to bury that time capsule.