Organized vs. Cluttered

Organized vs. Cluttered

Speaks of Children vs. Commercialized

Relevant vs. Outdated

We know that what our school, classrooms, office, cafeteria, and bathrooms look and feel like gives our students and community their first gut reaction to who we are and the work that we do. Is our environment clean and aesthetically pleasing? Do we show our students learning and celebrate their work? Or, do we put up commercially bought posters and boards that look cute (maybe) but do not show the “life” that happens in our school everyday?

We know that our students have difficulty organizing their desks, backpacks, and homework. Yet, year after year, we get frustrated, see it happening again, and do nothing to change it. We are habitualized to this event and then wonder why our students have difficulty organizing their thoughts and ideas. We get frustrated when they lose their work or can’t find their materials.

We know that leaving the same information up about who we are and what we are learning does not fairly represent all the learning and work that you and your students do every day. Yet we sometimes leave items posted for months, sometimes even the whole year, without even noticing.

Remember -

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Anything that is worth doing, and doing well, needs to be modeled and taught to our students. Nothing should be assumed about any student’s ability to succeed within our expectations if we have not taught it, modeled it, and modeled it again. Praised it, and celebrated it, and praised it again. This takes time. Yes, time away from your content. You might feel like you are wasting your time. You might feel like you are falling too far behind. You might think the other schools are passing us and we will never be able to catch up. But remember, slow and steady wins the race. Our students need the skills associated with organizing and respecting their learning environment.

The perfect example of this comes from our own classrooms and practices. When we first introduced breakfast in the classroom, many of the kinder and 1^st grade teachers were very concerned about the mess it would create in the class. I have seen these teachers, year after year, start very slowly and “model” each step of getting breakfast and throwing leftovers and milk away. And to everyone's delight and amazement, the floors in those rooms are near perfect! On the other-hand, our upper grade classrooms have stains and spills that are, quite frankly, gross! Not intentional by any means. Actually, quite the opposite has occurred. There is a normal assumption that any child that has been in school for several years and is a little older would know how to take care of their breakfast items appropriately. But they don’t! We may just think they are lazy or clumsy, or that all students create these messy floors because they are just kids. But the fact is, we probably have not taken the time to model and teach these procedures daily until we can “see” that they understand and have the ability to appropriately take care of their breakfast items. If kinder and 1^st grade students can do it after much teaching, then so can our older students. They just need to be taught and held to that expectation.

As we move into our new year together, please consider the following questions and give your voice to our group so that we can all develop a plan together that meets the needs of our kids.

How do we come together to make these things happen? –

If having an organized desk helps a student to find work and materials quickly, how do we ensure this practice?

If having an organized backpack is necessary for students and parents to find homework, materials, supplies, and communications home, how can we ensure this practice?

If we want to know if communication from school is making it out of the backpack and to the adults at home, what can we do to help us gain this information?

If making sure homework is completed and the work is gone over to ensure we are not encouraging wrong encoding, what procedures can we put in place to ensure we can check each child’s homework daily?

If having the ability to access needed materials is necessary for a smooth running classroom, what practices need to be in place for this to happen?

If we believe that our environment is an aquarium that displays who lives in the environment, what would you expect your classroom to look like? What is on the walls? Is the environment over-stimulating? Perhaps bare and boring? Is the “intimate” working space of the child honored (Clean, neat, and organized or messy, disheveled, and dirty? Broken pencils and crumpled up paper hiding in desks and corners of bins)?

If part of being socially responsible helps us to understand how to properly dispose of our trash and clean up after ourselves, what would we put into our procedures to ensure this is being taught and modeled?

Do our bulletin boards, both inside and outside, communicate current and relevant information about who we are, what we are learning, and what we are celebrating?

While we will share the above questions throughout the year, it is important to understand the end of the day clean-up and get-organized expectations. Teachers will model and teach these expectations clearly and ensure the organized and clean structure is in place everyday.

Every day before students leave:

Desks cleaned off

Floors picked up – no trash, food, clothing, pencils, etc.

Sink area clean – no food or trash in sink, no food stored

Inside desk cleaned and organized

Pencil shavings by pencil sharpener cleaned up

Homework and papers going home inside folder and then in backpack

Student chairs stacked

Brain break and closing circle after clean up to ensure a calm and focused dismissal.