Gladly Would I Teach

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A few weeks ago I made an appointment with a counselor to help
me get over my phobia of bridges. In spite of my embarrassment and reluctance
to participate, she made me tap my face and say, “I’m afraid of bridges, but I still
love myself.” I felt foolish, but I have to admit that it seemed to ease my
anxiety or at least distracted me as I looked around the room in search of a
hidden camera. As you sit at your desk surrounded by clutter and feel anxious
at the mere thought of trying to organize it, perhaps you might want to start
by tapping your face and saying,

“My desk is a mess, but I still love myself!”

Warning:

If you don’t have stacks of papers all over your desk, your
chair, and/or your table, this blog is not for you. Just smile and thank the
good Lord you don’t have to worry about such problems and come back tomorrow
when the topic may be more pertinent to you. Or, better yet, skip to the bottom
of this post, click on Comments, and give me directions for organizing the
drawers of my desk. I still can’t figure out how to bring order to pens,
post-it notes, cards, paper clips, and all those extras that I am convinced
breed inside my desk drawers!

For now, let’s start with something really simple for
teachers who are drowning in clutter. 

Promise yourself that
you will clean off your desk in the next 7 days.  

You don’t have to do this immediately or all at once. Take
your time.  You are NOT allowed to scrape
everything into your filing cabinet drawers, desk drawers, or box that you
shove inside the closet. You get the idea. Here’s how I would weed through the
clutter.

1.      
1.  Label a file folder for each period you teach, each
course you teach, your homeroom/advisement, and for each extra-curricular
activity, club, or sport you supervise. Label folders for department, school
forms, staff development, and personal. Find a different color folder and label
it “To Do” or a similar title. If you want to color-code your folders, do so. Place
the folders in a box so you have a temporary filing system.

2.      
2. Go through the stacks of papers on your desk. For
each paper, ask yourself first, “Do I
really need to keep this form, paper, or handout?”  Many of the papers that have been stacked on
your desk for weeks may simply be thrown away. Do you really need to keep a
copy of a handout that is saved on your computer?  If so, place the paper in the correct folder.
If you have papers to be graded, put them in the appropriate class period
folder. If the papers pertain to the course, put them there. If you find you
have something that doesn’t fit in one of your labeled folders, make a new
folder and label it. Do not throw everything in one huge folder that you label “Miscellaneous”
because you will simply create folder clutter.

3.      
3. If you have a form that you must complete, place
it in the colored “To Do” folder

4.       4.  Don’t
forget the garbage can!  Keep asking
yourself, “Do I really need to keep
this?”

5.      
5.  When you have placed all of your papers in
folders, move the personal folder to
your bag to take home. Place the colored “To
Do” folder on your desk and allow it to stay there all year. Place your
class period folders on your desk or in a drawer of your desk. Now you have all
of the papers you need to grade in one place. After you grade papers, keep them
in the class period folder so you can find them quickly for class distribution.
In fact, you can assign students the task of checking the folder each class
period and passing out graded papers.

6.      
6. Place all of the other folders in your filing
cabinet (or keep them in the filing box) until we move on to organizing the
filing cabinet a week from now.

You have one week to clean off your desk. If you are a quick
learner and ready for accelerated study, move on to cleaning off other areas of
your classroom.

If you feel anxious, repeat after me:

“My desk is a mess, but I still love
myself!”

And start cleaning! You’ll feel so much better when your
desk is clean. It’s painful work, but it’s not like you have to cross a bridge.