The Decluttered Teacher | Chapter 1: Out with the Old, Heck, Out with Everything!

For Hoarders, Pack Rats, those who lived through the Depression, and those who are starting to believe stacks are a necessary evil.

Having taught at the elementary and high school level—and substituting in almost every grade, every subject, and alternative classroom imaginable—I recognized my God-given gift of structuring a learning environment that lends itself to classroom management and loads of learning.

Though a minimalist at heart and in practice, I realize a spartan classroom fails to please or serve most educators. Herein, we will attempt to create an environment that simply lends itself to learning: one free of distraction, disturbance, and disorder.

Out with the Old, Heck, Out with Everything!

Rarely do we as teachers inherit a brand new, sterile room, ready for us to test our interior design skills. Typically, our inherited room requires more than a couple well-placed wooden apples from students past to turn it into an efficient, effective learning environment in which kids will feel comfortable, cared for, and educated. Whether the room, bequeathed unto us, was previously resided in by a retiring pack rat, was previously a storage room, or was previously the teacher’s lounge (seriously!), we, as new residents, must prepare the room.

Let’s assume worst case scenario: you have inherited a room from a retiring octagenarian who taught (and possibly slept) in this classroom for the previous fifty-some-odd years. Furthermore, she fastidiously held onto every scrap of everything: stacks of students’ homework dating back to the Carter administration (blue-ruled lines completely faded); History books (not yet called “Social Studies”) in which Sputnik has yet to be launched; Science books in which rainforests are still referred to as jungles and there’s no mention of the metric system; a forty-eight star American flag; green blackboards (yes, I’m aware of the seeming misnomer), which are still stubbornly fastened to the walls even though all other teachers have whiteboards; stacks of Laser Disks and VHS tapes, which teeter precariously in a corner; an untangleable ball of every wire that ever came with any electronic device; an unopened, dusty copy of How to Help Your Students through Integration; eight, putty-yellow, four-drawer filing cabinets you’re afraid to open; a popcorn tin filled with push pins, thumbtacks, paperclips, and hairy bobby pins; a tray drawer (once successfully unstuck) filled with dried-out pens, disciplinary forms where corporal punishment is still an option, and a dried puddle of Elmers glue; and roll-down maps of which the most current one still proudly portrays the USSR.

First, unclench and breathe. In fact, take a photo or capture a quick video. You will likely want to Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or blog about this undertaking after the fact, and, for this reason, will need a Before picture.

Next, pop an allergy pill and prop open the door, because the dust is about to fly.

Stack all of the mismatched chairs and desks of differing heights off to the side. Then, open every drawer, cabinet, closet, bin, nook, and cranny (assuming, of course, your nooks and crannies can be opened). Pull every dusty book, broken yardstick, and glitchy Speak & Spell out of hiding and deposit them in the center of the room. When even the most covert of storage stashes has been emptied, take another picture. We’ll call this one Studies in Contemporary Insanity #73. It will sell for millions.

It’s time for the heavy lifting. Remember those eight, four-drawer filing cabinets the last teacher used instead of investing in a paper shredder or a recycling bin? You can even picture her pondering every piece of paper but ultimately deciding, “I guess I better keep it, just in case.” Well, I hope you have already made friends with the custodian, because we’re going to get rid of the filing cabinets. All of them.

“But, wait!” you exclaim, “How can I possibly run a classroom without a single filing cabinet? What will I set my ivy on or ficus next to? Won’t other teachers think I’m not a serious teacher?”

Your school-issued laptop or desktop is now your filing cabinet. Your ivy will look quite nice next to the window. Other teachers will only notice how much bigger your room seems than theirs.

Yet, you continue, “But, computers crash, files are lost, and I need to hold the paper in my hand.”

Back your files up digitally (easier on a computer than with hard copies, anyway); file logically and give your documents meaningful names (a digital search is typically much faster than sorting through eight, four-drawer filing cabinets, that’s thirty-two drawers, for you coaches); and if you must hold the paper in your hand, print one copy and use a small filing folder for your most-loved curriculum enhancers.

[Digital decluttering posts are forthcoming!]

You have just reclaimed over 100 cubic feet of space, you bonded with the custodian, and cured eight putty-yellow eyesores. Would that color have really gone with your rainforest theme anyway?