The Importance of Organization for Teachers

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By 

Melissa Kelly

Updated March 07, 2020

Educators today are expected to fill many different roles, which is why teaching can be a challenging profession. The key to success in the field is a teacher's ability to organize herself, her classroom, and her students. As teachers try to become better organizers, they should visualize what results they want in their classrooms before they install an organizational system. Learning a few concepts can help.

Punctuality Means Students Are Ready to Learn

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Organization means that students are in their proper place at the proper time and know what's expected of them, and the teacher is ready with effective lessons and means of assessment. If students are not in class on time due to a lack of an effective tardy policy, their education suffers. Tardiness affects the student in question as well as other students who either have to wait for the student or endure a brief interruption as the tardy student enters the room.

Students Learn Important Life Habits

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In addition to learning the importance of punctuality, students also need to learn about industry, perseverance, and achieving accuracy in their work. Without these skills, they won't be able to successfully transition to the real world of living in the community and holding a job. If teachers and schools provide a framework that reinforces these habits, students will benefit.

Good "Housekeeping" Keeps the Focus on Learning

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When the little items are established, such as when pencil sharpening is allowed or how students are able to go to the restroom without disrupting the class, the classroom itself runs in a much more orderly fashion, which allows for more time for instruction and student learning. Teachers who do not have systems for these and other housekeeping items in place waste precious teaching time to deal with situations that have no bearing on student learning and achievement. Once organizational systems are in place and students understand and follow them, the teacher is left free to actually instruct the students. The focus of the day can be the prepared lesson plan, not whether a student is allowed to go to the restroom at this particular moment.

Good Organization Leads to Fewer Discipline Problems

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If a teacher has a warmup exercise on the board when students enter the room, this gives them a framework for starting the day that is lesson-centered. Students are expected to sit in their seats and begin working when they enter the class. Having a warmup assignment ready each day means that students have less free time to chat and potentially become disruptive. Having a system for handling late work can also help minimize classroom disruptions. If a teacher does not have a system in place for giving students their assignments when they have been absent, the educator will have to spend valuable time at the beginning of class determining what assignment to give them—leaving the class unmonitored for a few minutes, a recipe for disruptions even before the day's lesson begins.

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