students with organization problems

You need to get the parents on the bandwagon with this one…if these kids don’t have supportive parents they won’t succeed at this no matter what you do at school. We have found that if we use a checklist with a reward that the student and parent have established jointly…the students seem to be more compliant and organized

I’d say checking them isn’t enough. Organization comes much harder to some than to others. In my own life, I know not to take on too much paper work - I can’t manage it. If you need an organizer of materials and papers, you’d never hire me but I do fairly well with organizing people.

In school, we try to make our students the same. We try to make them all into organizers of paper and materials and it’s just not what all of us are cut out to be. I’d suggest asking yourself what is your goal with these kids? Is it to turn them into organizers or it is to help them stay organized in school?

If it’s to stay organized in school, they don’t need to be checked - they need to be helped. I sit down with my disorganized students - sometimes in a small group and together we go through the papers in the binder. It’s tedious but if we make time for it once a week it helps a lot. It’s rather like an AA meeting for the disorganized. There’s no judgement or sense of failure in the air - it’s let’s get this done and get on to other things. I help them make decisions as to what can be thrown away and what should be thrown away. I’m there with the three-hole punch (not all my colleagues hand out punched papers!) I have a ready supply of reinforcements for the torn papers.

For my own advisees, I will sit down one one with the organizationally challenged and go through their backpacks with them regularly so they don’t turn into black holes. Disorganized people such as myself think organization takes vast amounts of time - it’s what makes us avoid doing it. The task seems overwhelming to us. We need a coach not a checker. Someone to show us how it’s done and to support us while we do it.

Good luck.

I am one of the terminally disorganized myself.
Every few months I excavate the papers in the living room to keep it a living room.

Criticism only makes it a lot worse.
Checking does no good at all if the person doens’t have the skill you’re checking on.
Imaging if I handed you a homework paper in third-year calculus, written in French. The next day I check your work and when I see that you don’t have it done, I tell you how bad and stupid and lazy you are, and how ungrateful for all my help. I tell you that of course it`s easy, you just do this, this, and that other thing.
You stare at me with your mouth hanging open, naturally. Of course I already studied several years of calculus and I already speak French fluently, so *for me* it’s easy. But of course the question in teaching is not whether the teacher can do what is required (we hope and pray she can), but whether the *student* knows how to do it.

If you present me with one of thoise nice multicolour seven-piece organizational systems, I will either give you a flat no or run screaming from the room, the same as you would do to me on the thrid or fourth day with that French calculus.
I simply do not have the skill to manage a seven piece system and all the colour coding — that’s the *problem*, not the solution.

Two things that do work:
(A) simplify, simplify, simplify.
The other day I saw a lady on TV who advises people to get a cardboard box and label it “Lose the House or Go To Jail”. Then you put in this box papers that you absolutely must do or else you wil lose the house or go to jail. Nothing else, only life and death. NO sub-topic s or apphabetical files, which will just overcomplicate and make you run screaming again. Then every week or two when you are feeling strong, you go through this box and take care of it.

(B) Help rather than criticize.

I have to go now as someone else wants the machine. More later.
This is similar to what I have to do myself, although a boix would be neater than my heaps.

In regards to the word “checklist” I should have put contract. If the modeling and organizational system is set up and the student has a “contract” where they are working towards a mutual goal and everyone is on the same page it can work…

So if the student want’s a new CD lets say…they have to get so many happy faces on their chart for working towards the goal of organization and eventually they get a reward…

I have a daughter who is very disorganized and she is in 5th grade and I’m a very supportive mother, and I cry out for my daughter for someone to help her,but reponse I get is I have to many student in my class and don’t’have the time. She tries to get a buddy to help her, but that always don’t work out. I wish there was a person like sara who would sit down and help her,but that not the case.Her grades suffer because the reg teacher don’t have
time for my daughter.When she goes to her spe Ed teacher she gets her organized with her subjects in which she teaches, its just
the subject that she has with the reg teacher.And I don’t know what to do next year where there no resourse room for my daughter to go to.Any advise P.s the reg room teacher said she will not make it next year. any advise would help

[quote=”Anonymous”]I have a daughter who is very disorganized and she is in 5th grade and I’m a very supportive mother, and I cry out for my daughter for someone to help her,but reponse I get is I have to many student in my class and don’t’have the time. She tries to get a buddy to help her, but that always don’t work out. I wish there was a person like sara who would sit down and help her,but that not the case.Her grades suffer because the reg teacher don’t have
time for my daughter.When she goes to her spe Ed teacher she gets her organized with her subjects in which she teaches, its just
the subject that she has with the reg teacher.And I don’t know what to do next year where there no resourse room for my daughter to go to.Any advise P.s the reg room teacher said she will not make it next year. any advise would help[/quote]

You’ll have to take on the task of teaching your daughter how to get organized yourself. The sad but true fact is that teachers generally DON’T have the time to sit down one-on-one with students and go through their notebooks, assignments, etc. Ideally, they would have that time and would work with every child in that way, but that’s not the reality. That means you are the one who is going to have to sit down every night with your child, go through her backpack, check her assignment book, ask her about upcoming tests, papers etc. There are lots of specific things you can do, ranging from giving her a small tape recorder to “speak” her assignments into as she receives them, to getting her a large plastic folder into which all things to come home go and all things to go back to school are placed. Some kids do well with color coded folders. Some like a big binder with separate plastic folders for holding important papers. The key thing is, your child is not going to come up with these solutions on her own. She needs a grown-up to show her how and to work with her EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR A LONG TIME, PERHAPS EVEN YEARS, until the way to do it becomes ingrained. Sadly, teachers are not going to be there to do this, so the job is yours.

Pattim — I know you mean to be helpful, but a checklist or worse a contract and a multi-step organizational system and a bribe are just not going to cut it for me or for many of my students or my family. I am a very honest and up-front person, and when you present me with that contract I am going to refuse to sign it, because I really try to avoid lying. If you force me under duress to sign it, as do many teachers, you have just set up a really nasty conflict — you are forcing me into lying and I really resent it, on top of the original organization problem which is still there and now overlaid with failure, frustration, and anger. I have huge difficulties with organization. I have zero natural time sense, although now over age fifty I have developed about the same as the average eight-year old. I have poor spatial orientation. I have difficulty remembering order. I have poor hand-eye coordination. I have difficulty managing several different objects in my hands or on my desk; something is guaranteed to hit the floor. Give me your multiple folders and colour coding and palm pilots and tapes and systems, and you will quickly reduce me to tears.

There is no easy answer, but start by simplifying. One backpack. Pens in pocket. Everything kept together and it won’t be lost or separated. Write things to do down as soon as you see them, in whatever place works best — front cover of a notebook is one effective place. Never use separate scraps of paper or other loose items that will get in the wrong place. Once you get the simple down to some kind of order, then work on slightly more complex, say one duotang per class. But keep it simple.

As far as helping — yes, I agree, teachers simply do not realistically have the time. There was a long discussion here a year or two ago about this — the parent was saying it is only one minute, or only five minutes. But every teacher’s only one minute has to be multiplied by thirty. One minute each for thirty kids — each kid has had a single minute of personal attention, not enough to do much real good, and the whole class time has been used up, with twenty-nine minutes of doing nothing or fooling around while the teacher attended to all the others. Only five minutes for one child has to be considered with the other ten special kids who each deserve their five minutes, and all the organizational hassles that schools mess teachers up with. I have on occasion spent three hours over two days trying to get a few copies made, for example. Teachers also try hard to get kids to be independent and work out their own systems; allowing a child to be too dependent on you just leads to failure later down the line when you are not available and the next teacher can’t or won’t do all the extra.
If the chlid has problems, the teacher can go a certain way, but it is really up to the parents to take up the slack. If you try to work out your own systems, for example every single paper in the backpack, period, and you help sort the backpack at home, you can get further.

Many schools are posting homework assignments, upcoming projects, tests, etc. on the school’s website. There are a variety of different programs (EdLine, VES, SchoolNotes for example) that offer this possibility with different features. Work sheets can be scanned into the school website/class folder or posted as well and the student can complete the homework assignment and email it back to the teacher - no paper is generated so no paper is lost.
Schools are moving towards 21st century technology and the independence that that offers. So many kids would benefit from a system that DOESN”T require them to record the assignments in a notebook but allows them to log online to the school’s website to obtain the information. Many parents love these sites as well since you can obtain your child’s grades, progress notes or whatever your school has set up for you, the parent, to access.
(Colleges already post syllabi, handouts and assignments so we are actually setting up our kids for success in college)
This is an example of universal design - what benefits kids with disabilities, benefits all kids.

As someone who is organizationally challenged and responsible for teaching and coaching LD kids I can see value in each of your comments. I think that is why it is individualized education.

I am very interested in assistive technologies that have been effective in your experience. I agree that a class Website…I use blackboard is a great help. I work in a very affluent school and I think Palms and Digital Recorders are in reach for most kids…..has anyone had experience with using these with students on a long term basis? Has anyone had success with email pushed to parents and student accounts…if so how did it work and what are some of the drawbacks over time?

I too am organizationally challenged, especially at home…I have ADHD, CAPD, stitches in my chin from my depth perception issues and it takes me HOURS to get my things organized. :shock: However, I have a quirky splinter skill where I appear organized in my job because of my hyperfocusing abilities I am able to troubleshoot problems at schools, organize caseloads when other case carriers are missing deadlines etc…

The only thing that motivates me to keep organized is to keep my job and the $$ rolling in… I have to be organized as a private contractor SLP, if I wasn’t I wouldn’t get my paycheck…. :lol:

So I figure if there isn’t something in it for the kid or any adult for that matter they aren’t going to buy into it no matter what one does to get them organized. :roll:

In other words where there is a will there will be a way and if people can live with disorganization let them. When it becomes a problem for them, they will do something about it. :wink:

Not making this up — this actually happened Thursday night.

I have been repeating here: simplify, simplify, simplify.

OK, at home I have a stack system: everything goes into a stack. In the kitchen, I used to use the kitchen drawer, but that got too full so now there’s a dollar-store plastic basket on top of the fridge. Any time I get any gizmo or gadget for the house, anything from alarm clocks to ceiling fans to washer-dryer unit to plug-in timers for the lamp, the papers that come with it go into the basket. If I find a paper lying around and it’s for the VCR, into the basket.
So, my tenant came to me because he wanted to learn how to reprogram the electronic thermostat in his room, I told him the papers are in the basket and we started digging. Five minutes later, voila.
So how many of you really organized people could find the instructions for your thermostats?

Simplify — it may not look so pretty, but it really works.

in the drawer next to the stove that is crammed full of important papers…infact I should probably start cleaning it out…as it has been crammed for 11 years… :lol: I do piles too but after awhile they drive me :shock: nuts…then I clean it out and start pitching…

I’m a stacker myself. Unfortunately my cats like to sit on the stacks and topple them. :-(

—des

[
I am very interested in assistive technologies that have been effective in your experience. I agree that a class Website…I use blackboard is a great help. I work in a very affluent school and I think Palms and Digital Recorders are in reach for most kids…..has anyone had experience with using these with students on a long term basis? Has anyone had success with email pushed to parents and student accounts…if so how did it work and what are some of the drawbacks over time?[/quote]

Hi,

As a person with NLD/ADHD who uses a palm pilot and a computer to deal with organizational challenges, I have wondered the same thing.

I keep hearing that the palm is too high tech and that professionals should always start with the low tech route and work upwards. My answer is that the palm was simple for me vs. using paper which for me, was way too high tech. With the palm, everything is in one place and I don’t have to remember which of the twenty notebooks I wrote a particular note in. Even when I used a dayplanner, I had a hard time remembering. But with the palm, there is that wonderful search function that solves that problem.

A local school that caters to students with LD was using digital organizers in the classroom. I would imagine that would be helpful to a kid who has visual spatial difficulties and find’s it an absolutely living nightmare to have to copy down assignments correctly in the last minute hustle and bustle.

I realize technology isn’t perfect and comes with its own challenges. But it sure made a difference in my life. Why not give it a try if the current system isn’t working and has been tried repeatedly?

PT

<<So I figure if there isn’t something in it for the kid or any adult for that matter they aren’t going to buy into it no matter what one does to get them organized. :roll:

In other words where there is a will there will be a way and if people can live with disorganization let them. When it becomes a problem for them, they will do something about it.>>

Hi Patty,

I have mixed feelings about your post. Yes, I was motivated to learn organizational skills because of serious failures in the area. So you’re right, financial issues are a factor.

However, this has come over a period of years and I am still learning. If someone had shoved a performance contract at me at the beginning of this period, I would have resented it greatly.

Another reason I have a problem with incentives and organization is that is seems this is the only disability in which we make motivation an issue. If a blind kid was having trouble reading, we wouldn’t make him/her sign any contract but we don’t think twice about doing it with kids with various LDs and ADHD who have organizational problems. Please understand that I am not making excuses for these kids but it just seems to me, we’re interjecting the hot button labels of motivation and laziness into the equation when these failures are due to neurological difficiencies in the brain.

Also, many kids with NLD have severe organizational problems and do not understand the issues of consequences and rewards. So your program would not work with alot of them.

One of the best books I have ever read on organizing, Organizing from the Inside Out, by Julie Morgenstern, stresses that you have to analyze where the breakdowns are occurring before you can implement an effective system. Yet, I don’t recall one post in this thread proposing that.

To be fair to you all, I don’t think this is commonly done in schools. I know, time is an issue but as someone who knows first hand, what it is like to hav these difficiencies, if you take shortcuts, all you are going to have are a bunch of kids who are very frustrated and continue to feel inadequate because of their deficiencies.

PT

for me to stay organized. I have my good days and my bad days. My brain definitely works differently than people who have the organization genes in their gene pool.

Many times it is a time consuming problem to wade through the issues that are stopping people from being organized. But I have found generally that a person has to be motivated internally to achieve a goal before it comes to pass… And if they have a cognitive or a severe physical impairment, this may limit successful outcomes as well.

For instance, one can enable a person by doing everything for them with a cognitive/physical impairment to the point that they aren’t learning to do for themselves and learning to be somewhat independent inspite of their physical challenges. I have seen this happen with children and grown adults and there really aren’t any shortcuts to overcome learned behaviors from being enabled.

[ I realize technology isn’t perfect and comes with its own challenges. But it sure made a difference in my life. Why not give it a try if the current system isn’t working and has been tried repeatedly?] quote

PT -
Thanks for your first hand experience - it confirms what has been my experience with working with students as well.

Hi Patti

<<Many times it is a time consuming problem to wade through the issues that are stopping people from being organized. But I have found generally that a person has to be motivated internally to achieve a goal before it comes to pass… And if they have a cognitive or a severe physical impairment, this may limit successful outcomes as well. >>

I agree it can be time consuming to wade through the issues but I feel that is a crucial step. How can you solve a problem if you don’t know what the barriers are? I was extremely motivated but because I didn’t have tools until the palm pilot came out and I read “Organizing from the Inside Out”, it was an exercise in futility big time.

By the way, doing this is not rocket science. For example, I realized that if I put up hanging cloth folders on the wall near my computer and two stacking shelves nearby, it would eliminate alot of clutter on the floor. I realized I had nowhere to put stuff that I was working on and didn’t want to put away. Problem solved.

You work with kids with reading issues right? You test them to find out what their problems are so you use the right remediations. Why should the organizing area be any different?

<<For instance, one can enable a person by doing everything for them with a cognitive/physical impairment to the point that they aren’t learning to do for themselves and learning to be somewhat independent inspite of their physical challenges. I have seen this happen with children and grown adults and there really aren’t any shortcuts to overcome learned behaviors from being>>
enabled.>>

I totally agree with you on this. But I find it ironic that you’re mentioning that shortcuts can’t be taken but yet you feel it is too time consuming to figure out the barriers that are preventing people from being organized.

Please understand Patti that I don’t mean to be critical as I am sure you are swamped with work and really are trying like heck to help folks. But I am just trying to point out that problems with organization are more than just an issue of being motivated.

PT

PT

[quote=”PT1”

But I am just trying to point out that problems with organization are more than just an issue of being motivated.

PT

PT[/quote]

This is an extremely important point. The essence of executive function is organization and the essence of ADHD is executive dysfunction. A person with ADHD may be highly motivated to be organized but lack the internal resources to accomplish that task. That is why an understanding of where the break down is occurring is important, as is taking the time to explain, monitor and practice organization techniques, over and over again, until they become an ingrained habit.

I didn’t say that there are shortcuts…I feel that you have misinterpreted what I tried to explain.

FYI..I am an SLP…I work with both ends of the spectrum….High functioning ADHD kids, with organization issues, major problems communicating and expressing themselves, organization of language expression and writing, and the kids that have the most problems, Down/autism, LIF, seizures, paralysis, some are totally non-verbal use communication devices and sign language.

I am letting go of this as I don’t have time to split hairs with you.

[quote=”pattim”]I didn’t say that there are shortcuts…I feel that you have misinterpreted what I tried to explain.

Hi Patti,

I apologize as obviously, I did something to offend you. By the way, if you reread my post, I never said that you claimed there were shortcuts. Your points seemed contradictory but like you said, I might have misinterpreted what you said and if that is the case, please accept my apologies.

I know you said you have nothing more to say but I really would like to understand where you are coming from. But if you chose not to respond, I do understand.

All I was trying to do was provide another viewpoint from the perspective of someone who struggled like heck with organizational problems. I was concerned that too much emphasis was being placed on motivational issues.

But in no way, did I mean to disrespect you at all as I know you are an SLP. However, I have dealt with professionals who far too readily ascribed motivational reasons to my problems when if they had bothered to do some digging, they would have realized that wasn’t the case. I just don’t want anyone else to have to go through similar experiences.

Obviously though, I struck out big time and I do apologize for that.

PT

Patti — I am very worried about the motivation attribution as well. I know that I am very highly motivated to do certain things, one of them being to organize better.
However, in this particular field I have the classic LD experience: I work my butt off to do better, I get a real improvement, I am very proud of myself, and various people dump a bucket of garbage on my head. As soon as I clean out my backpack, a long and painful process, someone makes a very snide and hurtful comment about my car or my room. I work like a dog to get the kitchen under control, and somebody literally laughs in my face about the unfinished floor and other renovation projects that aren’t done yet. Someone promises to help me with my finances, I respond extremely positively and present the situation honestly and openly, they take apart everything that I have done and decide they don’t have time to finish and leave me with total chaos to scrape up.
After many many years of this kind of thing, I am quite edgy; more prickles than your average porcupine.
Help would be very nice — I just ask that people think clearly through teir process beofre forcing it on me.
Telling me that it’s just a matter of motivation is very hurtful; I can tell you that it’s just a matter of motivation that you can’t do three-dimensional calculus and all you have to do is try — now, did that help you get better at math?

Patty, you said: [quote=”patti”]

In other words where there is a will there will be a way and if people can live with disorganization let them. When it becomes a problem for them, they will do something about it. :wink:[/quote]

OUCH. OUCH.

I am ever so glad it worked for you, but PLEASE understand that you’ve just done the equivalent of tell an LD kiddo that if he would try harder, he could read better. “When it becomes a problem for you, you’ll do something about it.” Yea. Right. He’ll read when he wants to!

I’m not even going to give the details in all their details, since I really *must* clean up some of the clutter on my floor, really… ande because I would hope that you will realize without that that what worked for you just might not work for everybody.

Okay, just one little anecdote… sitting there and haveing my dept. head look at a student portfolio that I’d spent two hours the night before getting into some semblance of organization, but no, I hadn’t gotten the others done yet… and telling me I really should budget my time better and might have to sacrifice some other activity - basically, diplomatically telling me that of *course* I had time to organize my student’s materials and notebooks better, if I weren’t doing other things. I realized (of course too late to say anything) that she had no idea that it took me that long to do what to her was a quick and easy task. I’m pretty sure that was the day that I just about ran over the girls gym class… but that would be another anecdote…

… and through the years I lost count of the people who offered to be my organizational coach. I always accepted… it never worked.

**I am having trouble with my new computer setup. Every now and then it either posts or loses my typing or jumps to another line or section for no reason. Please ignore typos, incomplete posts, and double posts until we get this straight.**

Yesterday I was typing away with the TV on in the background (I’m hyper and can multitask). Lo and behold, a clip about compulsive hoarders. And they’re about to repeat it now — NEXT on CNN. They showed several photos of homes of sufferers who had huge toppling heaps of papers and other junk. Thank the Lord I’m not yet that far. But there was one comment that made me wince — the psychologist describes people as having “goat trails”, little paths about a foot wide that wind through the clutter. Hmmm, time to really get at those boxes and tools for various projects and clear out those goat trails.

I am trying to get support from my child’s school on the issue of organization. He often misses homework assignments because he didn’t hear them or forgot them. I suspect there may be instances where chooses not to hear assignments because he is afraid he cannot do them. This is not always the case. He is a fifth grader who has Auditory Processing Deficit and ADHD. He is about two years behind the average fifth grader in reading and math. His teacher will argue that the assignment was discussed “all week” in the classroom plus she accuses him of leaning on his disability as an excuse to get out of work. His disabilities support the fact that he is forgetful and distracted easily, plus there is the added frustration of not measuring up to his peers. He gets tired, frustrated and angry. Regardless of the reasons this is happening, I am trying to get all teachers to monitor my child’s input into his agenda and to have him write his assignments in his agenda. This will give me the opportunity to make sure all assignments are completed and teach him valuable skills at the same time. Because negative reinforcement has been indicated by the school, I feel I need to arm myself with support before addressing this issue at the next ARD. Can anyone suggest some testing or evaluation I can have done prior to the ARD that will help me support my side of this issue? I was wondering if a psychiatric evaluation could help support the fact that part of his avoidance my be caused by emotional issues, plus I need something to support that he does not remember things as the average child would. I’m not sure what to do next, but do not think negative reinforcement would be productive.
Westes

I am having the same problem. With the help of my professor I am buying my students folders for each subject to help them keep up with their work. The students will not be allowed to take these folders home because they are not always responsible. Other teachers at my school do the same thing and it seems to work.

[quote=”shalonda”]. The students will not be allowed to take these folders home because they are not always responsible. Other teachers at my school do the same thing and it seems to work.[/quote]

How is it that you think the folders will be enable them to keep up with their work if they can’t take them home? What is it that leads you to the conclusion that your students are not “responsible” as opposed to the conclusion that their executive function issues make it difficult to keep track of belongings such as folders? I always cringe when teachers (or prospective teachers) make these sorts of blame-based judgments about why children have difficulty in school. Are there irresponsible children in the world? Sure there are, but that is not the first conclusion you should reach when you are talking about children struggling with ADHD or LD.

This is one of my warm-button issues (not a hot button, but an irritation).

Who does schoolwork belong to, the teacher or the student? This may seem like a silly and trivial question, but it isn’t. It’s one of those attitude things that colours everything you do all day and your whole approach to education and work.

When I taught Grade 1 and 2 for a year, I handed out the textbooks and workbooks to the kids and they kept them in their desks. It seemed natural to me; these are your books that you work with, and it saves time and trouble if you just open up your desk and pull out your math book.
Well, I caught holy *&^% for this from a number of parents and teachers and a school board representative. Seems what I was “supposed” to do (who made these “supposed to” rules, anyhow? This is a serious question to think about!) was to keep all the books in stacks on my desks, hand them out and re-collect them each class; and for the math book in particular, rip out one page per day and hand it out, re-collect it, mark it, and send it home.
Adding up five minutes for the handout and re-collection four times a day, that would be twenty minutes a day or 60 hours a year, the equivalent of three full weeks of time, taken away form teaching and used in passing papers around.
And for what purpose? Sure, the teachers who did this and other administrative things had neat clean classrooms and everybody working on exactly the same page — and my class averaged 1.5 years improvement in reading in one year. What exactly are your priorities again, folks?
Besides, I didn’t particularly want everybody working on the same page. I had them start where they left off and progress through the whole book (and a second book for supplementary practice) and so avoided both the bright kids staring into space doing nothing and the slower kids rushing through half the work half-understood. And we had a cumulative record of the math work to see and look back on. Maybe that’s *why* they made such good progress?

I also brought in lots of books from various places including my own money at the used book store and set up a class library. I let the kids take home any book they wanted, class library or text or workbook, and had them sign it out by writing the title on the side blackboard. I lost fewer books than any other teacher in the school, maybe two or three out of hundreds for the whole class, so the system worked better than hanging on to the books with a death grip — and my kids *asked* to take books home to read and to work on.

Some years later I called the school trying to get a reference. The principal’s assistant asked who I was and what class I had taught and said “Oh yes, *that* group! They have such great self-esteem! They believe they can do *anything*!”
Aren’t ownership of your own work, and working from a known base, amazing concepts?

Of course I caught &*^% constantly for not doing things the “right” way — but who made those commandments about the “right” way, where are they written, and what makes them right?

If you have kids who have trouble organizing, how is taking the whole thing out of their hands and not letting them even try going to teach them how to do it?

Start small and **keep it very very simple**, but start giving them something to work with and give them a chance to improve.

There’s a difference between having the student’s folder *at his desk* and having him take it home.
The logistical reality is that if you take it home and forget it, it’s not there. So what do you do in class? An alternative has to be in place — and that may be worth doing, but it takes time… so sometimes it might be simpler to hand the notebooks out.
If you have different students using the same desks (switching classes/teachers) then having them keep stuff in their desks won’t work, either.
Ownership *is* important — but having in-class notebooks doesn’t preclude it. (However, I *would* set things up so that the students retrieved their own notebooks.)
There are connotations, too, when you say “some student’s aren’t responsible” — usually it means the teacher thinks that the studnet *should* be, and usually it goes along with a lowering of standards (they’d learn more if I could assign them homework, but I can’t do that because they aren’t responsible enough to keep up with their stuff). But it’s a tough spot to be in, and I hate it especially when I realize I’m ending up limiting the class to the lower common denominator — I might just have some kids who *could* develop the homework habit. On the other hand, if the negative attitudes are entrenched, it can work a lot better to build a foundation of success before expecting independent learning.

in response a reply, the purpose of the folders in the classroom is to help them become orgainized in class. Once we get that establish we can work on orgainization at home. My students don’t have any folders at all and make any and every excuse of why they don’t have a folder or why they can’t get one, so this is my way of ensuring they have folders to keep up with in class assignments and handouts.

Makes a lot of sense! If you model how to do it at school, and create a situation where it works, then they can both see the value in it, and be spared another “great organization idea” that doesn’t work for them because they took it home and it fell behind the sofa.
I took a college course in Web Design and was both impressed and relieved at the way it taught organizing files & materials. I woulnd’t have even thought about it, but it would have messed me up big time. FOrtunately, there was alwasy a current version of the current files for our current exercises so that if we managed to make a mess of things, we could “start over” — not at the beginning, but right where the class was, with everything organized. I know some people would hav e thought we should “have to be responsible” for keeping track of everything — I also know I learned a whole lot more about both web design and file management by not drowning in my mistakes.