Sunday, March 28, 2010

ON GETTING ORGANIZED - INTRODUCING THE DESK DETECTIVE AND THE LOCKER LOOKER

Good order is the foundation of all things. - Edmund Burke, British Philosopher

For me, being organized is not a natural predilection and I have to work at it every day. Countless minutes are wasted as I rummage through a drawer looking for a pair of matching socks, or try to put my hand on an important paper that was carelessly left on a counter. What is my problem? A personality characteristic? Poor parental modeling? Too much on my plate? Pure laziness? Whatever the reason or reasons I am constantly resolving to change my ways and get organized once and for all. It's a little like deciding to go on a diet. The trick is to start and continue or all is for naught.

Most of us can get away with not being organized in our personal life. After all, who knows but me that my hall closet looks like Dagwood Bumstead's. Not so for teachers. To be effective we need to have good classroom management, good information AND good organization.

So, does it not follow that it is incumbent upon us to teach good organization skills to our little charges? I believe it is right up there with reading , writing and arithmetic. I am amused when I think about the insides of students' desks, cubbies and lockers as the school year progresses. You can see immediately who is organized and who isn't. I wonder if a case could be made that academic organization can be increased by cultivating personal organization?

To my way of thinking, teaching organizational skills begins with this concept: A place for everything, everything in its place. It made sense to me when I heard the expression, and it works for me now. It works for children as well. If you do not have proper procedures, routines, and places to put things, and train your students in how to use them, you are doing them a real disservice. In other words, if a teacher has not taught classroom organization and says something like "put away your things and get ready for lunch, recess, library, etc.", papers, pamphlets or folders often get shoved into the desks where they will stay until some kind of mandated desk clearing activity takes place. Many a school event is missed by parents who did not receive an informative flyer about that event because it was buried deep in a desk, or lying on the bottom of a locker along with paper bags containing old mouldy sandwiches.

Here are some things that work.

1. Student mail boxes are placed where the children can access them easily. For me I had accordion type folders velcroed to the fronts or sides of the desks where corrected work and notes home could go. I have also seen some schools where cloth storage "mail boxes" were fitted over the backs of the students' chairs. Since teachers often have to move students in the classroom, the latter seems like the better idea, as the student takes his chair and "mail box" with him wherever he/she goes. Permanent mail boxes located somewhere in the room also work, but take up valuable counter or floor space and cause a lot of confusion at the end of the day when a bunch of kids are trying to empty their boxes at the same time.

2. In-Boxes for returning homework and notes from home should be positioned near the door.

3. There should be boxes for completed student work. I liked this box to be on or near my desk. An additional out-box containing corrected work could also be there for returning later.

4. Seating arrangements are a teacher preference. Some like group settings clustered around the room, while others like all students facing the white board or viewing screen. This arrangement determines how crayons, scissors, glue, pencils, etc. are stored. In the former, there is often a basket with supplies for the "team" in the middle. Many children have pencil boxes located on their desks with all their supplies inside. Sometimes these storage boxes are color coded and used as a tool for moving about; i.e. "Green Box People can line up now.", etc. Students need to be taught how to maintain organization of these supplies. Nothing should be assumed.

5. Routines about pencils, where they are kept, when they are sharpened, what to do if the pencil is missing, etc. might bewilder a non-educator, but teachers know how disuptive pencils can be in the classroom unless routines are taught and enforced.

6. What goes inside the desk is all important when teaching organization. Too many books, binders, folders and loose papers often put students into organization overload. Repeatedly, I have heard kids complain plaintively that their math books or writing folders weren't in their desks, when in fact they were just sandwiched between other materials.

7. This is where having a place for everything comes in handy. Many successful teachers decide that writing, social studies, science and other such folders can be organized in storage boxes somewhere in the room with easy access by teachers' aides or table captains. Gone is a lot of desk clutter, so that only reading books, math books, writing journals and binders are left.

Now I would like to introduce you to my friend, the Desk Detective, a character developed by a special teacher I know. The Desk Detective would visit random nights when the children had gone home and check out the desks. Those with clean and organized desks would find a complimentary note with a smelly sticker or small treat when they returned the next day. Another character, the Locker Looker, would also randomly check lockers for cleanliness and emptiness with a similar note and treat. Since students knew that there could be such a visit it was important to always be on the ready. Occasional reminders by the teacher would keep up the suspense of a surprise visit.

Our role as teachers, then, is to model organization, and teach it along with other academic subjects. In case you are not yet convinced, Paul Hegarty has this to say online about getting organized:

"Why should you get organized? Getting organized gives you the ability to achieve balance in your life. Getting organized allows you to see what you are doing and how much time you spend doing it. Getting organized will help you to relieve stress because you will know where you stand. Getting organized will give you the opportunity to achieve your goals. Getting organized will help you to deal with challenges with ease. We are busy people these days and getting organized can give us more time."

I couldn't say it better. So, if we aren't there already, let's get organized now. And equally important, if we are teachers or parents, let's help our children to be organized as well. I can tell you from personal experience that rummaging around in the sock drawer or looking for that missing paper is just too much additional frustration in our full and busy lives!

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BOOK NOOK

The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond by Donna Goldberg and Jennifer Zwiebel

Organizing the Unorganized Child by Lynda Altman http://www.brighthub.com/education/homework-tips/articles/35089.aspx

Teaching Students Time Management and Organization by Chelsea Robberson http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1189631/teaching_students_time_management_and.html?cat=4

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