The Decluttered Teacher | Chapter 4: The Teacher's Station

The Teacher Station, should model for your students organization, functionality, efficiency, cleanliness, and leadership.

I cannot tell you how many classrooms I have visited where the teacher’s desk was a slapdash amalgamation of every Should I keep this?, I might use this., and Just in case.

Remember, you are Jean Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise. You are Minerva McGonagall, professor of Transfiguration. You are Joan of Arc, leader of the French Army. You are President Washington (albeit with fewer wooden teeth), Commander in Chief!

You are the example. Where you lead, your students will follow. Most of them!

So, make your life easier. Make your student’s life easier. Make your substitute teacher’s life easier. Declutter.

Also, once decluttered, you will no longer see a stack of tasks, a mountain of to do’s, or a pile of I’ll never get to that.

Notice that I am calling this zone the Teacher Station, not the teacher’s desk. We got rid of that, remember?

This zone is now largely your school-issued laptop, a file folder with up to a day’s worth of ungraded assignments (unless the assignment was to make a model volcano, in which case a file folder may not do), and a second file folder with important papers requiring your attention.

How zen is that?

Now, first imagine everything that was in, on, under, and leaning against your teacher’s desk. All of that is now a laptop and two file folders. However, if you insist, you can even have a pen or pencil (not both).

Fortunately, most of a modern teacher’s “Actions Needing Completion” come in the form of an email, where they take up hard drive space instead of physical space. But, at the same time, education is far from a paperless industry. Cull early. Cull often. [In a future post, we will discuss digital decluttering.]

The things that are not in this area: a cup of pens, graded/ungraded assignments from last week, a desktop computer, a stack of “how cool would it be if I had enough time to do this” ideas (even though you honestly know you never will), trash (this includes Dolphins sports memorabilia and decor with burlap on it), or a framed picture of you and your pet ficus.

This in mind, what kind of furniture do you actually need? A tiny table? A student’s desk? Will the counter at the back of your room work? Can you sit at a table with your students?

In fact, when I taught fourth grade, I would sit at a table with my students. And, when I taught ninth grade, I would often just sit at an empty student desk next to students as they were working on the assignment. I didn’t require a teacher desk to prove I was the teacher. I was the teacher no matter where I sat in the classroom.

And, remember, as you set the tone for an organized classroom, your students will take part in that. By decluttering your area, you are in effect beginning to declutter twenty plus other areas in your room.

Your classroom just got bigger!