Room 223, Mr. Van Winkle’s classroom, does not have your average classroom setup. One step into the room, and you will see the head of a plastic baby doll on his desk next to his stack of DVDs for his Study of Film classes. But that plastic head is not the most unusual item you will find. If you ask him to open his closet in the back of the classroom, a giant tarantula and even more plastic babies can be discovered. Each item in Mr. Van Winkle’s collection has a story, and the common denominator of these stories are seniors from years ago. Here are a couple stories you may find interesting.

The baby dolls left in Mr. Van Winkle’s closet are kind of creepy, to say the least. They are from the senior baby projects of students who have already graduated. One is completely intact, with students’ signatures on the clothing. But another toy infant has missing limbs, darkened eyes, and writing in permanent marker all over its body, and a stapled on peg-leg.

“Seniors can be an odd bunch of coconuts,” Mr. Van Winkle explained. “I don’t know why they did it; I just know what they did.”

These dolls were left on his desk on the last days of the seniors’ respective school years. The plastic baby head that rests on his desk was also left as a senior prank.

If you take a good look near Mr. Van Winkle’s desk, you will find a Santa head on a wooden stick. He told my class that years ago, seniors gave him the Santa head. They put it on top of that wooden stick to reference the scene in The Lord of the Flies where they put a pig’s head on a spear.

In a discussion between Mr. Van Winkle and his students, they discovered that the name, Volkswagen has both of Mr. Van Winkle’s initials. After open lunch one day, seniors handed Mr. Van Winkle a Volkswagen hubcap.  

“Everything in my classroom,” says Mr. Van Winkle, “has come from students that I have taught. Why they want to give me gifts, I’m really not sure. But over the course of 18 plus years, I have accumulated many items and many stories that go with each item.”