Disorganized desk at school?

hmmm, gotta tell you my son did this before. He got soo frustrated about losing yet another current events assignment in the vortex of his desk,that he turned his desk over and shook it out. He was then left to clean up his mess,which is a fate worse then death. Anyway it didn’t help him to become organized and clean,his desk is STILL in shambles.

Okay about how to deal with the teacher. I would venture to guess that your DH felt humiliation because he was supposed to. Apparently the teacher in your husbands life did the desk turning over in a different way? There is probably more than one way to turn a desk over and get it cleaned out. Your sons teacher could have doen this in a different way,and your son doesn’t seemed bothered,so I would guess it wasn’t done in a humiliating way?

I would bite my protective tongue ,and address your son’s pension for keeping a disorganized desk,and have it written into his IEP. I personally have to go into the school my boys are at and bring a BIG garbage bag and say,okay,clean it out! Of course we WONT even discuss my desk here around my computer!

It may or may not have bugged him — don’t assume either way.

I would try to figure out a way to deal with the problem before it gets to the dumping stage — a buddy or the teacher just going through the thing every Wednesday or so… if you present it just right, he might (I don’t know the kiddo :)) even be willing to show up early to get it straight. Some kids are just as happy to be in a clutter; others would *love* to have control over it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I’m definitely going to address this at his next IEP. As to whether he enjoys the clutter, I think he is just in such a hurry to get out of school he just shoves them so he doesn’t have to bother carrying them out to his backpack. And some get thrown in there so he doesn’t have to do the work.

I have bigger battles to deal with at the school right now, so am going to be low key about this one. I’m mostly frustrated at not getting notices of things I would like to know about. Guess I’ll have to go in myself on a weekly basis and help him with this to keep things manageable.

My son could be your son’s twin. We’ve had addressing his problems with organization put in his IEP for the last three years. He has made progress, but it’s still a problem. There’s no quick solution. I’m glad to share what seems to be working, at least for now.

My son and his teacher essentially take every thing out of his desk at least once a week and go through it. He has an extra bin for things he uses all the time that are easily lost in chaos. He puts papers there that need to go in the backpack that night. If he forgets a paper, we note his book and he does the work the following night. We’re working toward him managing his desk and things more independently.

It must be that my kid isn’t the only one who “forgets” to bring things home! The school has a “Tuesday Envelope” with info about upcoming school and class events. Each child gets their envelope when they pack up for the day. Parents sign and return so the school knows it made it home.

Good luck to you and your son.

You’re right these things shouldn’t happen. Does she know he has ADHD?

If she does, I’d call her, or e-mail or write a note, and let her know that when his desk gets like that, you’d be happy to come in after school some day and help him sort out the papers to keep her from needing to feel like she’s got to dump his desk contents on the ground.

Some kids try hard to keep the top of their desk neat and they do that by shoving papers inside the desk. They need to have a place to keep the old papers. One of my colleagues just tells the students to keep ALL the old papers in their binders but soon the binders split apart.Where is he supposed to be putting his papers by the way? Is there a binder on his desk? A file or folder somewhere?

With the permission of his teachers, I started helping my son clean out his desk every Friday afternoon when he was in 3rd grade and continued the practice until he went to middle school in the 6th grade.

This presented a wonderful opportunity to find out what was going on in my child’s school life, and I got to know his teacher better. It is amazing what you learn from a teacher in 10 minutes on a Friday after all of the students have left the building!

I’m happy to say that he’s in 7th grade now, and all we have to keep straight is a notebook. I’m sure inside his locker lurks untold treasures, but I don’t care about that…the work is all in a binder in a backpack.

Have any of you ever heard of flylady.net? She’s been helping me get organized around my house and you’ve made me wonder how much organization she could bring to my own disorganized son. Basically, she has you training yourself to use short routines during the day that keep the disorganization at bay while you work toward organizing the rest of your life. It works surprisingly well. We are homeschoolers and our time is not always well spent, and the truth of it is that a short amount of focused time can accomplish more than a day full of good intentions.

So how about laying down a routine for your son (with the cooperation of his teacher) in which he spends 1 minute (literally) tidying up his desk at the end of every day. He stacks his books, puts old papers in his backpack along with homework and he’s on his way. His teacher would need to remind him of this routine everyday for a month or so until it is well rooted and then he would probably only need to be checked on every now and again… seems like it would behoove the teacher to have the whole class spend a minute, one focused minute, no talking, no thinking of other things, nothing but cleaning up the desk.

Just thinking out loud.

Jess

We’ve done the same thing every Friday for 2 years since 2nd grade. My son still forgets to turn in assignments, or he holds on to them thinking he needs to work on it more. But, I’ve been noticing a big improvement this year. His folders are still a jumble, but no more crumpled papers and lots less trash. Good luck.

You could ask the teacher. “How did Johnny react when his desk got emptied?” I might get her thinking about how it might have been an inappropriate or embaressing thing for him. Alot has to do with “how” she did it. Was she frustrated and scolding at the time, or was it light-hearted and a practical way to clean it out. Hopefully, she was trying to help him at the time.

I know sometimes I just have to dump my purse to find anything.