Order in the classroom

September 16, 2013

Why is maintaining the space in order important? Today in our morning meeting we discussed how to organize our space and how to make it look presentable. This is an issue that we have had since last year, and apparently we haven’t been able to fix it; no matter how many morning meetings we take to try to solve the problem, we solve it for a day or two and then our space is back to being a huge mess. Maybe it is our way of approaching the problem; we always give the same solutions to it. Or maybe there is something bigger that I am missing.

I believe that our space is something that we should always keep nice and in order, it represents who we are. I keep on thinking that if we happen to have a guest who sees our space, he will probably get a bad image of who we are. And I think it just doesn't represent the work that we are trying to accomplish here.

During the morning meetings in which we have spoken of this, I have given a few options on how I think we can maintain the space clean, but I have noticed that at the end all of my solutions come down to personal actions, which is something that I cant change. I can’t make one of my classmates clean up after himself and I sure can’t order their space, I mean, it’s their own personal things. So what can I do to help this problem?

Something I have been thinking about lately is that maybe I should start with keeping my desk as an example. I could organize my desk and clean it every once in a while. Maybe with this I can make people aware of how their desks look and make them want to clean theirs. But then I don't think that only by doing this they are going to get the habit of being organized.

Sometimes I think that the problem is our space. We don't have enough space in our desks to put all of our books and personal things and also have a place to work. We don't have a place to put our backpacks and our sweaters. I think this is a great deal of why our space looks like a mess. But then again, we could’ve found a solution to this, like brining cabinets or a bookcase.

Another problem that we have is that our chairs are always a mess. I don't know if this is because all of our chairs are different so it kind of makes it look a little chaotic or because we always leave them all over the place. I have noticed how the first years always leave their chairs in order in their own space, and how orderly their space looks. It is very rare when we leave all of our chairs in order and in their place. We have also talked about this and we always agree that we are going to change it, but so far it hasn't worked either.

I think that my task for this next week is to find solutions to our space and chair problem. I would really like to  come to the class in the morning and find everything neatly organized and I would also like to be proud of our space.