The Importance of Organization

            Ever since people started talking about how to improve the education system, one thing that has always been talked about is “Is it more important to teach skills or content?”.  I think that there should be an equal balance of both, but one part of skills that I feel like are looked over in the classroom too often, is organization.  Organization is a skill that can not only make or break you as a student, but as a person too.

  I used to be terribly unorganized in school, and my grades were greatly impacted by it.  I changed my habits going in to the tenth grade, and my grades started to raise again.  This is because before I got organized, I had to focus a lot of my time and energy on finding the work that I needed to do, instead of using all of that time and energy on the work itself.  Luckily I had some people in my life that taught me how to be organized outside of school, but I know that there are plenty of students who go through their school years without ever learning how to truly be organized.  And if people aren’t taught how to be organized, I think it’s going to be a massive shock when they go into the working world without any of these skills, so it is very important for it to be taught in the classroom.

            There are tons of ways to teach organization, but not every way will stick with every student.  I believe that every advisory or homeroom class, whatever your school has, should teach different ways to keep students organized.  For example, they should teach a way to stay organized by means of an agenda, by means of technology like having an online planner, and by just helping students mentally organize and prioritize their work.  The only real way to see if students are staying organized, is graded notebook checks.  I almost hate saying that, because I don’t like them, but it is really the only way to get students organized, and I know it will help on the long run.

            This particular skill is very important at this time for high school students, because it is a skill that goes beyond the classroom.  Time management is also under the category of organization, and high school is arguably the busiest time in people’s lives, especially for student athletes.  Again, I was lucky enough to have learned this through some people in my life, so time management has never been too much of a problem, but I see that a lot of my peers are having that issue.  One way to teach this, is to teach kids how to properly use a planner, either on their mobile device, or on paper.

            Organization has been an issue for high school students for such a long time.  It is often one of the things that separates a good student from a great one.  It is a tough skill to teach, but through the right teaching methods, it can be so beneficial to the students.