The Teachers’ Corner:

As a principal, I always shuddered when I saw a teacher walking down the hall with an armful of student papers, a daybook and a few texts.  At the back of my mind were these concerns:

• Does that teacher really have a handle on that pile of papers in terms of who handed in what?
• What are the chances of some of those papers getting lost as a teacher moves from room-to-room-to staff-room-to car-to home without a secure carrying case?

Those concerns came from two sources:  my own experience as a rookie teacher and my role as the person a parent complained to (the principal) when the student insisted a paper was handed in, and the teacher was equally insistent that the paper was NOT handed in.  Suffice it to say that I was called to account in my first year of teaching by a parent who insisted an assignment was turned when I had no record of it.  It wasn’t a pretty conversation!

Following that incident, I immediately started a new practice.  Here’s what I did.

1.  First, for each of my classes I created a single, large marking folder that was clearly labeled (i.e. Period 2 English 4U).  On the front of the folder, I stapled a class list which was divided into columns that each represented an assignment or test along with the date and title (i.e. Unit Test on Macbeth October 17).  That was the first step.
2. The next step was to include in my class a short period of time (perhaps 3-4 minutes) at the end when I asked that the tests to be turned in one at a time as I called out the names of individuals.  I asked the student to place the test in my open folder on my desk and watch as I marked off its receipt.  I told them that the convention we would use would be: “If you didn’t see me mark it off, I didn’t receive it.”  That was meant to be a check on both of us.
3. The second convention I used was this.  I would not collect assignments in the hall, during my lunch period or after school unless I had my folder with me.  As we all know, students will be students and nabbing a teacher in the hall with an assignment when that teacher is on the way to another class or to lunch is high risk for both the student and the teacher.  With no place for a teacher to store that assignment at that time, there is an increased chance for losing the paper or leaving it somewhere.  In other words, I tried to make certain that the student’s work would not be lost nor my professionalism called into question because of the loss or misplacement.
4. And, unbeknownst to me, the folder had another use.  From my earliest days as a teacher right until the present day, I hated being stuck sitting in a doctor’s or dentist’s office or at the airport waiting to pick up someone only to find I had a lot of time on my hands – and little to do.  What I started to do in my earliest days as a classroom teacher was to be prepared for those “lost hours” by having ONE marking folder with me which, because of its bulk, would be hard to forget and harder yet to lose a paper or two. Everything was confined to one folder. This meant that I could use the waiting time productively without much risk of losing anything as would be the case if I had a loose set of papers.  I am happy to say, I never did – after that initial flurry with the parent so many years ago.

The moral of the story:  Develop your own system for taking in papers and carting them about with minimum loss risk.  You can use waiting time productively, show your students a little bit about “managing paper” (which we all need to get better at), avoid disappointing a good student who has worked long and hard on an assignment which was lost out of teacher carelessness – and avoid being challenged in a situation you can’t win.  It’s a win-win solution for everyone.

Dr. Dan

P.S. For online teaching, much of these same steps still apply.  Safeguard and organize your electronic papers in a similar fashion as above.