One of the things that happens all too quickly and easily in classrooms is for student desks or working tables to become untidy. This bad habit applies to students of all ages. It impacts tidy trays and disk storage areas.

One of the things that quickly add to untidiness is sheets of paper students have completed but which haven’t been filed, glued into scrapbooks or arranged for permanent keeping. Although a record of work, they quickly become ratty, crumpled, dog-eared and therefore not worth keeping.

Children should be encouraged to take pride in their work. One of those pride elements is how work is stored in desks and storage units.

Another problem is that pencil shavings are left on the top of the desks, in desk storage areas, or on the floor. It’s important to encourage children to sharpen their pencils in the rubbish bin or into a container that can later be emptied into the bin. The best pencil sharpeners contain the shavings until they can be periodically emptied.

Desks and tidy trays can become cruddy quickly. I believe teachers must have students go through and tidy their desks at least once a week. It is a habit worth establishing.

It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes for desks to be given a regulation cleanup and for tidy trays to be fixed. The ideal is achieved when students automatically and by habit keep their desks neat and tidy. Encouraging this when students finish work and have five minutes spare can be a way of helping to establish that habit.

I’ve heard it said that “cleanliness is next to Godliness”. There is no better place to start than with desk tidiness.

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