Taming Your Student’s Locker
August 15, 2012Ask any teacher. Many students struggle in school because they aren’t organized, wrestle with time management, or simply can’t find their work. It’s no surprise—have you seen your kid’s locker?
Lockers are dangerously deceptive. At first glance they’re little more than a box with a shelf, a door, and a hook or two—yet somehow they manage to chew, crumple, and cram loose papers into hidden cheek pockets like squirrels. Some papers are swallowed all together. By the end of the year, the things that tumble out of a locker maimed, mutilated, and destroyed can frighten students. When you consider how often our children interact with their lockers, it’s amazing they get away with their lives. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are three ways to help them control their locker.
1. Add More Organization
Your locker doesn’t have to be a black hole. You can add shelves, organized pockets, and cubbies that make the available space much more useful and orderly. And it’s as simple as adding the Hanging Organizer by LockerWorks. If you have a student in middle school or high school this organizer is a must-have. It’s adjustable to fit several locker sizes, and it will make a huge difference in their life.
2. Get a Calendar That Sticks
Adding a magnetic calendar to the inside of your locker door helps you remember your schedule, your daily assignments and due dates. Keeping a schedule in your locker will remind you what papers are due, so you can find them, work on them, and turn them in before they get chewed up and hidden away in your locker. They also come in handy when you need to remember important dates and (phone) numbers.
3. Keep Track of Important Messages
Often teachers, coaches, or friends will mention something that your student shouldn’t forget, but by the end of the day their minds are spent and the little things have vanished. But if they carry a packet of sticky notes, they can take note of the things they need to remember and stick these reminders inside their locker door. This gives them one more prompt before they leave each day. If you’d like something a little more creative, you’ll love these cloud-shaped magnetic corkboards. They’re a perfect way to add reminders to their locker doors.
School is a rat race and keeping up is a huge challenge for any student. But these three things alone will make a huge difference in your student’s life and help them get more out of their lockers than mangled, past-due homework. Of course, these creative solutions are just a few ways to help them stay sane. We’re sure you’ve thought of others. We’d love to hear them. Leave us a comment and share the ways you keep your locker orderly.
Here’s wishing you an organized school year.