>I told my friend the Reading Teacher that I planned to clean my desk. Really get it down to the desktop. She replied, “It really doesn’t look that bad, compared to some.” Well, “compared to some” was the key phrase. I wanted to be able to wipe down the entire surface to prevent further spread of – well, whatever might spread in an elementary classroom.
And when I got a little closer, it really did look that bad.
I attacked one pile after another. Filed. Corrected. Recorded. Returned. Sorted. Filed again. Recycled. But when I assessed the progress mid-day, it looked worse, not better.
But I was relentless. My gradebook got a workout. The kids’ mailboxes were full of completed work. My wastebasket was full, and the recycling bin rustled with papers I couldn’t reuse. Even (gasp) the pile to the left of the keyboard, the infamous Pile I Cannot Face, was organized into file fodder – er, file folders. And finally (drum roll):
The bell rang. And it was clean. And the poor little Girl Scout who came in after school with her fundraiser must have thought I was the nuttiest teacher ever, taking pictures of my desk!