Paper is the bane of my existence.
But it does exist, and it exists in this house. I have worked hard the last several years to eliminate the need for paper where possible, and to streamline our paper usage (with bound notebooks, etc.) when we have to use it. This has kept the kids from losing many important assignments (although we have lost entire *notebooks* at times, which is a little more traumatic than losing one assignment).
However, we still have lose papers floating around the house, as well as lost pencils and scissors, pencil sharpeners that mysteriously vanish, and disappearing glue sticks.
It is really my fault more than the kids’, because the teacher sets the tone, and while I am good at helping them get their work *done*, I am not so good at teaching them how to store their work. I do better at storing school supplies, but even these things need some reorganization. So I found _The Organized Student: Teaching Kids the Tools for Success in School and Beyond_ by Donna Goldberg, and am using it to revamp our schoolroom and other home study areas. I appreciate her accommodating and understanding tone—she suffered from dyslexia as a child, at a time when that learning difference was hardly understood, and was helped by a strong and tenacious mother who would not give up looking for solutions for her daughter. When Ms. Goldberg had her own family, one of her children suffered so from disorganization that, using her mother’s example, she went to work to find solutions for him, and eventually developed a home business. She is naturally organized herself, but has much sympathy, as well as practical advice, for people who struggle, and that came through in her writing.
This book is written with public/private school kids in mind, so some of the advice seemed unnecessary at first, but then I realized that certain things, such as the school locker, have parallels in the home school environment. Also, many homeschooled students attend co-ops or other outside classes. My oldest daughter has two outside classes this year. And you can’t forget extracurricular activities—sports, church, Girl Scouts, music lessons, etc. All these enrichment activities generate paper.
I am giving the highlights (as I see them) of each chapter in the book. Since I am rather longwinded, I will post each chapter in a separate blog post. ;o)
Ch. 1: Understanding the Organized Student
“An organized student can find what he needs when he needs it.” This is the crux of the chapter. Basically, she says that a student can be organized even if he doesn’t look organized to *you*, as long as he is able to lay his hands on what he needs in time. There are different styles of organizing, and some are a little messy. She says that is fine, as long as the student “can find what he needs when he needs it.”
She does point out that a disorganized child often has a room, locker, backpack, etc., that looks like a disaster area– *and* will be always frantically looking for something he needed yesterday. (I sometimes feel that way when my house is tidy. Can anyone say stash-and-dash?)
Kids are oriented toward different ways of organizing. Some kids do well using colors; others do not. Some kids think alphabetically; others don’t. You can figure out where your kids fit regarding organizational style by thinking about which style of learning comes most naturally to each.
She talks about what the typical disorganized child goes through in school beginning in elementary, with very organized teachers who don’t necessarily explain why they have the class do things the way they do. They have cubbies and folders and rules about coats—but they don’t instruct the child in how to apply principles of organization on his own. By middle school, children are expected to have internalized this organizational skill, but many haven’t. And by high school, they are drowning in a sea of paper and disappointed expectations.
(How does this fit into the home school environment? We as mothers, who want so badly for our children to succeed, certainly may organize their work and storage for them. Because we teach in a tutoring style, the child may get more of the “whys and wherefores” of organizing techniques, but that hasn’t happened sufficiently in my house. Organization as a habit often needs to be addressed specifically, because many children do not have the “innate ability to organize themselves”.)
She ends the chapter by talking briefly about executive dysfunction, of which physical disorganization is only one symptom. Many children are just plain disorganized, but some may additionally struggle with the learning difference she calls “executive dysfunction”—otherwise known as ADHD. I have also heard it called executive function disorder. She offers a list of things the child ought to be able to do (sequence, perceive cause and effect, focus, apply old lessons to new tasks, etc.) even if physically disorganized. If the child struggles with many of these mental skills, she recommends seeking professional diagnosis and help– although I must respectfully and humbly insert here that very often, even the professionals do not understand what is going on.
A little side note: I have gone through the experience of seeing ADHD everywhere I look, including in my entire family, but when it is really there, it is quite obvious. We are all “cerebrally disorganized” at times, but the child with true executive dysfunction has these symptoms consistently and in a debilitating way. I mean, you can just tell something is wrong. And when I say “you” I really mean the parent. That is why diagnosis for ADHD depends almost completely on understanding patient history. You are the expert on your own child. The “experts” ought to help you sort through things rather than taking the matter out of your hands. They are experts at understanding generalities in their field, which is why it can be valuable to seek the assistance of a professional. But it should be a partnership between the parent and the professional. Obviously, this is a blog post for another day, lol.
And another side note of my own: the growth that occurs in the brain during adolescence can mimic some of these symptoms without the child actually having ADHD, as an incredible blossoming of grey matter in the prefrontal lobe—the seat of executive function—undergoes pruning and connecting of neural synapses. For more info on this, I recommend reading _Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival Guide To The Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen_ by John Walsh. I hope to review this book at a later date.
Stay tuned for Chapter 2: Getting Started.
