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BACK TO SCHOOL!
september, 2011
issue 6 | |
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Pencils, books, teachers’ dirty looks...
And paper, paper, PAPER!
THEY'RE BACK TO SCHOOL!
The school year begins with pressed uniforms, sharp pencils and empty notebooks. But remember looking in that backpack in mid-November... yikes! The periodic table lies crushed at the bottom, along with raw macaroni from some art project, right next to the never-signed permission slip for Cedar Pointe!!
Is the black hole backpack inevitable? Or can we prevent the horror?
Well, you know what we Betties say, right? (Otherwise, you wouldn’t have much to read this month...) Ready Betties? All together now...
"You can stop the horror!!" |
STEP ONE: Analyze the problem. It’s the same reason a house gets cluttered, but on a smaller scale: too much coming in and not enough going out. You might even say it’s education constipation! Okay, maybe you wouldn’t... STEP TWO: Since the amount coming in is out of your control, you must increase the amount going out. (And no, we’re not going to suggest a suppository.) No matter how many binders and organizers a student has, s/he can’t manage a year’s worth of papers with one backpack. You need a system at home for those papers to stream into. STEP THREE: Create the system.STEP FOUR: USE the system! Good luck! Just kidding -- we'll go back to Step Three. First, at the end of every day, empty out the backpack and take away all papers that are not needed at school. Depending on age, the student can do this him/herself during the school day, putting all such papers into a “Take Home” folder. Returned tests and worksheets, art projects (if small enough), old study guides -- anything that won’t be needed at school from that day forward. Now put all those papers into a big pile and take turns jumping into it! (Just checking to see if you’re paying attention.)Seriously, these papers need to go into labelled files. If you already have a filing cabinet with
extra room, section off 6 or 8 inches for school folder files -- one for each subject; one for general school info; and one more for miscellaneous, because the real world never quite fits perfectly into our humble categories.
An accordian file folder can work, as long as you have enough sections AND the sections are big enough for the papers you anticipate coming in.
Now you have attained the organizer’s nirvana: a place for everything and everything in its place.
Sound easy? It really is, if you follow Step Four! Must you do this each and every day? For best results, yes! However, we realize that reality intrudes on the best laid plans of mice or Betties... So, aim for every night, but don’t let a week go by without pulling out those papers and filing them.
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You can take this a step further by using your trusty scanner. Many school papers are purely informative and need no input from the student. Consider scanning these and placing them in a virtual file. Create a directory on the home computer for each child. Then create subdirectories, one for every real file folder you have. Then scan the periodic table, and put it in Jessica’s chemistry subfolder, for example. The school calendar goes into the general school folder.
And so on and so forth and so scan and so, less paper!! Get the kids get involved. It teaches taxonomy -- a crucial ability in life and particularly, in organizing.
Ready Betties? All together.... "You can do this!" | |
The Betty Brigade 2008 Hogback Rd., Suite 2
Ann Arbor Michigan48105
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