The other day I subbed in a classroom that should probably have been declared a disaster area. Now...I'm by no means a neat freak. I'm probably somewhere in the center of the continuum from hoarder to whatever the opposite of hoarder might be. Things can get away from me, and I have to stop every so often to clean it all up, but when I go into a classroom with stacks of paper on every single surface that have been there so long that the dust is a visual presence and there is stuff on the floor in the morning that indicates that not only has the custodian not been there, but the kids didn't police the floor before they left the night before....well...I just wonder how anyone can function. How important is a clean, organized room to you? Do you find that decluttering your space allows you to think more freely?
My room is epic. I have labeled bins and file folders for everything. There is a place for paper clips all the way up to bean bags. I work really hard to keep it clean and accessible. Now my house and car...not so much. I forced myself to be organized in the classroom because I am not naturally so.
Considering an admin left a note on my desk the other day saying "clean your desk"-I'd say I'm not the best at that. I cleaned it off, now I can't find anything! I just don't have time to really get organized and then it snowballs from there.
My room is usually neat and organized. I found out I am switching grade levels mid year a week and a half ago. I've got so much going on (and in secret- no one knows yet!), so I now have complete chaos.
Everyone I work with thinks I am so organized - HAH! What I am is a workaholic! I have stacks of paper, but they are in bins. I am a hoarder, but try now to get stuff in digital form so it takes up no space, lol. If only they would let teachers design their classrooms, then my shelves (what few I have) wouldn't be too deep to reach comfortably or see what is where, I would have many more shelves and some closet space. I don't even have a locking file cabinet for my "private" files (special ed, etc.). My kiddos do police the floor every afternoon, and wipe their desks down with baby wipes on Friday afternoons, but I cannot guarantee that my horseshoe table (which I use more than my desks, which houses my smartboard computer & elmo) will be completely clear!
If anyone walked into my classroom, they'd think it was extremely neat and organized--nothing's out of place and it smells nice, too... ...Just don't peek inside my cabinets! Disaster area! :lol:
I am extremely organized - at school, at home and in my car. I own a label maker and have to buy re-fills regularly. Guest teachers have left comments about how organized my room is!
My classroom is organized. I love having things in matching, labeled bins. It is important to me that students put things back where they belong and take care of the classroom. We don't leave trash or other items on the floor. It is the custodian's job to empty our trash cans, not pick up our trash. I do typically have one table or shelving area that gets stacked with papers just because there isn't always time to sort through everything. I take pride in my classroom because it is where I spend the majority of my time and I want to make it a welcoming, comfortable environment for my students.
I am very organized. My teams teases me because I know where things are in their room-especially when they can't find what they are looking for!
I am very organized but the custodians only vacuum twice a week so the floor might be nasty, depending on what day you come. The kids sweep up spilled pencil sharpeners, etc., but that only does so much.
That's where my real obession lurks...my cabinets at home and school are very organized! I can't do it in our new home just because of a difference in cabinets, but I once had all my kitchen cabinets labeled on the inside. :haha:
Oh man...SOON! This apartment wont know what hit it by the end of Christmas Break. I'm coming back 3 days early to wreak havoc on the havoc. :lol: Cabinets are #3 right after dishes and laundry.
My room is pretty neat and organized. There are a few piles here and there of papers waiting to be organized, but I try to keep the piles to a minimum. The closet on the other hand is a nightmare! It drives me crazy, and I keep wanting to take everything out and completely overhaul it, but have never had the time. This is my 4th year in the room, and there are still things up on the top shelve and in the corners that the previous teacher left behind, and I've never even looked into. Its such a mess, it's hard to get to what I need sometimes. It's the one area that is a nightmare, but since I'm the only one who sees it, it's the last priority.
If you walk in, it's clean. If you walk in and keep looking around, it looks a little cluttered. If you walk in and keep looking while opening up cupboards and closet doors, then you duck for cover. Reason? I've spent less time in my classroom this school year than I have in my 4 years. I work my contract time and grade at home. I work on inputting grades on work day and plan on planning day. I went in on three weekends total this school year to make sure a few things were ready for subs or whatever needed to be done for special things out of the ordinary. So basically, my rooms a mess, but my family's happy and my students are learning. We're good that way.
As a sub I've seen plenty of classrooms, in all grades. For the most part they were pretty clean and organized. Some really neat, others just neat enough. some teachers have a clean room, with a bunch of papers in one pile, so it's only one little area that's messy. That's what I've done when I had my classroom. Then when I had time I would go through it. The classroom I'm in now is pretty unorganized. I already cleared off all kinds of papers, clip boards and not needed stuff and put them in one pile. I did it in a way that I can put everything back at the end (this upcoming Friday). I am going to clean up the rest of the room, including dusting, because it bugs me. Already put up some student work, (posters), the teacher encouraged me. I love this teacher, she basically gave me the greenlight in doing whatever I want I think I'm gonna go put up some student work from these past 2 weeks.
I would say that my room is neat but not super organized. I don't have labels. I figure students know what pencils and folders are and I certainly know what my supplies are. No need to label them. I just cleaned up my "teacher bookshelf" the other day while my students were taking a longer test. I try to keep it clutter free, but that can be a bad thing too because sometimes I'm too quick to throw things away or worry that I may need them for some sort of documentation in the future. A couple of times I have thrown away a paper that I later realized I still needed. So you won't see stacks of papers for me, but that's because I'm always throwing stuff away! Just this week I realized I threw away our report card instructions, thinking that now that it's 2nd quarter I know how to do report cards. When I went in to start on them, I realized that paper had all the number codes for comments we're required to put. Oops. We have "data goals" in math and reading and are required to progress monitor weekly. One of my teammates saves every test from every kid for both data goals for years after the kids leave the room.
My room is definitely not super tidy. It is organized and labeled fairly well. I have a spot to pile my paper and I have a simple filing system which works well. Almost everywhere except one corner is accessible to the children and for the children to use. This tends to make it get messy easily. Some years the kids are great at cleaning and some years they are not so great. My biggest problem is noticing the little messes and making sure the children clean it up before we move to the next thing. I am still working on keeping track of that.
Freakishly organized I would seriously notice if someone moved something over to the left a few inches. It's funny, though, because it isn't a lot of work to keep in clean. I spend about 5-10 minutes at the end of the day straightening things, and it's good to go!
in between...my room gets messier and messier as the day progresses as I am teaching but I do NOT leave for the day until everything is put back in its place and everything is ready for the next day...I cannot stand too much clutter...
I try to impress upon new teachers the need to be tidy and organised. My desk is usually covered in stuff and papers which I try to clear by Friday. We have just had the end of the school year and had to clean out our desks and put everything we had into boxes (teachers are changing grades next year). I now have a beautiful clean and clear desk!! I can get on my soap box when I see teachers using expensive classroom furniture (bag lockers) as their personal shelving space. These lockers cost over $500 each and some kids are putting their bags on the floor! My co-teacher next door used the project block shelf to store her photocopied worksheets and the puzzle/bookshelf she placed against a wall and had the puzzles on a table in the middle of the room. The puzzles weren't made and pieces were everywhere. Being the lead teacher, I did tell her that the shelves should be used for their original purpose and she could use another shelf for her copies. She's not in that class next year and the TA moved everything around.
I tend to hoard, I should add that in my packing up for the year end, I did throw out quite a bit of paper work. I found papers dating back to 2006! I am getting more ruthless, but you never know when you might need .....
I am a super-organizer/cleaner. My mentor teacher...not so much. But hey, he's been in the same classroom for decades. New classrooms should be designed with shelves that fold in and out with the push of a button. Between all the talent on this forum, we should be able to find a designer and someone to actually build them, then we can patent it and improve the lives of teachers everywhere! What is the best organization scheme/strategy you have seen in a classroom? I'm in science, so I'm particularly interested in labs...
