Home | Resources | ATPE News | Fall 2009 | In the Classroom
In the Classroom
by Kris Childers, professional development coordinator
Start the school year right with a classroom reorganization
You return to your classroom after summer break revived and ready to get back into the swing of things. But wait: Your classroom is exactly how you left it at the end of the past school year. Boxes and furniture are everywhere!
Instead of immediately stuffing your supplies back where they were before, ask yourself if your classroom is a place where both educator and student can access materials quickly and easily. If your answer is “no,” now is the perfect time to reorganize. Start the year with a classroom that you and your students will appreciate as an efficient learning space.
Calling in an expert
Austin ATPE member Theresa Conrad, a seventh-grade social studies teacher, has struggled with a disorganized classroom since she began teaching three years ago. “At the beginning of each school year, I vowed to organize but got too overwhelmed by it all and ended up putting things in their same old places,” she says. The 
disorganized classroom brought unneeded stress to both teacher and students, so Conrad decided to call in a professional. She hired an organizer.
First, Conrad and the organizer sorted her supplies into three piles: “throw away,” “donate” and “save.”
“This was the hardest part—I wanted to keep everything,” Conrad says. “But my organizer was very firm about being open to parting with things that I hadn’t used in a few years.”
Next, Conrad organized the “save” pile, keeping things together that “just made sense,” like books, teacher materials, manipulatives, reference materials, etc. Then she put everything into clear bins and labeled all bins and areas of her classroom.
“I basically divided my room into stations and labeled each station clearly,” Conrad says. “The organizer shared so many great tips with me for creating a classroom environment that I think will finally work.”
Mission: Your desk
The most important station in any classroom is the teacher’s desk. The first step to achieving an organized desk is removing clutter, according to Denise Landers, author of Destination: Organization, A Week by Week Journey and a national speaker, trainer and organization guru based in Houston.
“Anything that is surrounding you that is not useful, beautiful or treasured by you should be disposed of,” says Landers, who’s also a former teacher. Landers says the items you use most frequently, such as your stapler, pens and pencils, should be on top of your desk with your computer and telephone. Place everything else in desk drawers. Invest in small containers to store specific items in drawers; you’ll be less tempted to toss something in a drawer if it has its own container.
Make time for maintenance
Now that her space is clean and freshly organized, Conrad is faced with the task of keeping it straight. She’s going to establish organization routines for her students to follow. “I’ve realized that the classroom isn’t just my place to keep clean; it’s my students’ as well,” she says. “I’m holding my students accountable this year. I’m assigning jobs and building transition time into every lesson so kids can have time to complete their jobs.”
Conrad has also created a personal organization to-do list to complete before she goes home every day. “With a checklist, I won’t forget anything, and I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day,” she says.
Although it will take time to reorganize your classroom, you’ll end up saving minutes in the long run. And, like Conrad, you’ll feel even more energetic about heading back to school. “I feel refreshed and can’t wait to begin the school year in my new-and-improved classroom!” she says.
BOOK REVIEW: Teach smarter, not harder
If you’re reading ATPE News, you know it’s a myth that a teacher’s workday begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. Once the final bell rings, a teacher has papers to grade, lessons to plan, meetings to attend, parents to call and clubs to sponsor. Recognizing this, educational consultant Robyn R. Jackson, a former middle school administrator from Maryland, wrote a book about teaching smarter, not harder. The title says it all: Never Work Harder than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching.
In Never Work Harder, Jackson writes that an educator’s goal should be to teach with a “master teacher mindset,” a mindset that comes from taking everything we know about teaching, organizing that knowledge into a few “governing principles” and applying those principles until they become habits. The book is a collection of these “mastery principles.” According to Jackson, master teachers:
- Start where their students are.
- Know where their students are going.
- Expect to get their students to their goal.
- Support their students along the way.
- Use feedback to help their students get better.
- Focus on quality rather than quantity.
- Never work harder than their students.
Read an excerpt from Never Work Harder at www.mindstepsinc.com/robynrjackson.asp.
ATPE NEWS POLL
Which area of your classroom do you find the most difficult to keep organized?
a. My desk
b. Files
c. Student materials
d. I don’t have a trouble spot; I’m perfectly organized!
Cast your vote, and then discuss your opinion in the ATPE Idea Exchange, an online community where veteran educators share ideas with their newest colleagues.
©istockphoto.com/claylib-early childhood teaching resources; Dinamiracle-Office Set
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