This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
This is my first year as a teacher and I am teaching in the special education program at a middle school just outside of Atlanta, GA. This school is a Title I school with about 95% of its population being African-American. A few years ago, the school was really struggling to meet state standards but, in recent years, scores have really been rising.
I teach 4 sections of Language Arts; each class has about 10 students, with a variety of special needs (learning disabilities, emotional behavioral disorders, mild intellectual disabilities, ADHD, etc.). The kids are good kids who haven't been pushed hard in their writing in the past so the work that we do now is sometimes overwhelming for them but they have shown some real progress so far this year.
Although I am seeing a lot of progress in my students' writing abilities; that progress is impeded by the lack of organizational skills in the classroom. As a first-year teacher, I'm even struggling to organize all of my files, but I have the means to test out some different systems and am pulling myself together.
On the other hand, my students' organizational abilities are really poor. I have one student who sticks every paper she gets into her locker, which is overflowing by now, so she can't ever find anything in it. When I was looking through another student's binder with her a few months into school, I found crumpled up letters to parents that were supposed to be delivered within the first week of school. I have still other students who just leave all of their papers under their desks and thus never complete homework because they don't bring it home.
Given this situation, I have made it a big priority for this semester to help my students learn to keep track of their stuff. I want each student to have their own binder with dividers and a removable folder. That way, we can organize the binder together and we can always refer to which section our papers belong in. I want students to be able to keep track of their writing samples, their tests, and their grammar exercises. Additionally, each student will have a removable folder that they can use to bring work home; otherwise the binders will remain in my classroom under careful supervision.
Middle school students are renowned for being all over their place - their hormones are raging, their minds are racing, and their organizational skills suffer because of it. In a couple short years, my students will be at high school where they will not necessarily have teachers who will hold their hand and walk them through every step of the learning process. I want to make sure that, by the time my students reach high school, they will have some organizational skills to rely on so that they can succeed on their own. You can help me achieve that with them by funding this project!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Lamb and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.