In my classroom, I will keep all my side tables as clean as possible. I had a problem with clutter in the middle of the year that drove me crazy, both because it looked ugly and because my students had more license to mess with my stuff when it seemed like my stuff didn’t matter. I spent a while reorganizing and straightening up, a process that involved throwing a metric boatload of clutter into a closet. Once everything was rearranged neatly, the room was brighter, and students no longer felt license to sift through my stuff or touch books that they don’t intend to read.
I also will have more tables for students to put their things on. I use lots of table-space on a daily basis: gradebook here, laptop there, worksheets lined up along the side here, markers, my bag, supplies for the kids, etc. My students, however, only have their desk and the space under their desk, maybe the precious space in an empty desk next to them, and they, having no lockers, bring so much junk into my classroom that ought to be set aside.
I also like the idea of space and a place “for my kids.” My drive is for relationships, for meaningful conversation. It takes a lot for these kids to open up to a bizarre white guy with an effeminate voice and foreign accent. I need everything to work toward my advantage, including aesthetics. If I can give some students a sense of ownership, or at least an absence of the sense of chaos, then I am one step closer to a genuine, fruitful teacher-student relationship.
I need to figure out where to put my tables, and where to stash the 1,000 books that my school just put in my classroom. One of my summer purchases might be some build-it-yourself shelving units and organization cubbies. I love cubbies. If I had cubbies, nothing bad would ever happen in my classroom.
A neat-looking classroom is also good for keeping track of student work. If there’s a place for them to put their work, for me to put work for them, and for me to put my own work, there’s a great likelihood that all of us will get our work done when it needs to get done.
Organization has never been a weakness of mine, but keeping things tidy in that classroom, where not everything “has a place” yet, is a great challenge. I hope to tackle that challenge head-on in August.
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