Project(s) Ideas

One of the things I've come up with for a project (in all honesty, the only thing) is getting my mentor's classroom completely organized. All loose and unnecessary papers gone, all binders and lesson plans clearly labeled. All file cabinets organized and ready to go whenever something is needed. Currently, my mentor's room is an organizational nightmare. Papers everywhere, file cabinets stuffed with useless and outdated lesson plans and work sheets, binders shoved into one single cabinet. It's horrible.

So today, I started on what would be my organizational crusade by tackling the bloated file cabinet. I started organizing it at 10 o clock, and by the end of the day I had wound up with two trash bags and a recycling can full of old folders and papers. It was mind boggling how much useless stuff she still had. I've organized almost the entire cabinet, separating each drawer by subject, and grouping similar folders in to the larger sliding folders inside the drawer. So for the social studies cabinet, there is a large folder containing all the smaller folders that deal with the age of exploration.

Doing this project would help me develop several skills that I think are not necessarily touched upon in regular school life. First off, I would learn the importance of good old fashioned, by the sweat of your brow work. Cleaning up a classroom is a lot harder (both practically and physically) then one would imagine. Second, I can then use the organizational prowess gained by hours of practice, and apply it to school and home life. I would say "Well I've already organized a whole classroom, my school binder shouldn't be a problem".

And last but not least, doing this will be extremely beneficial to my mentor. She has always had a problem finding things, even when I was in her class 6 years ago. Now that I can really see the condition of her room, it's really no wonder why. Doing this will allow her class to run much more smoothly, because she won't have to take large chunks out of her day looking for things that she needs, improving both the efficiency and learning quality of her classroom.

While it may seem like just another menial task that any boneheaded kid could do, this takes a very large commitment and the ability to recognize what is needed, and what is junk. I'm pretty dead set on doing this for my mentor.