We all have one (or maybe more than one). That student that just can't seem to bring all of their belongings to class. There is always one book, workbook, assignment, pen, pencil, etc. that gets left in the locker. This drives me bonkers. It's probably one of the worst pet peeves I have as a teacher not including forgetting to write your name on your paper. Maybe it's because I was a little OCD throughout school and never wanted to be that kid that forgot something. I even remember running back across campus during college because I grabbed the wrong binder. The thought of walking into class unprepared was more paralyzing to me than skipping the class altogether, but I digress.
So back to "that" kid that always asks in the first five minutes after the bell has wrung, "Mrs. DeLong, I need to go to my locker. I forgot to get my/ I got the wrong __________." It's to the point now that oftentimes, a quiet hush befalls my room as the other students wait to see what sort of verbal lashing "that" student will get today. And yet, tomorrow, I know that same kid, five minutes into class, will raise his/her hand and tell me they've forgotten something else yet again. Our team provides each student with a Knight Card of 10 punches that they may use during class to go to the restroom. My other teammates let the kids use it to go to their locker, but again, since it's one of my pet peeves, I don't. My "AHA" moment to this ongoing issue came last week when my students were required to turn in an argumentative essay. Out of about 85ish students, I only received 40 essays. Knowing that I was going to have them conduct peer evaluations, I had written the essay with them earlier in the week. I realized that instead of having those kids just sit there in class while the kids that completed the essay conducted the peer evaluation, I made extra copies of my essay, and had those kids do the peer evaluation on my essay. This upset several that assumed they would be able to get out of an assignment, lol. Much to their chagrin, and I totally was giggling on the inside.
Kids that are repeat offenders of not bringing their required materials to class lose their locker for a week. Since this is usually pretty embarrassing for a student as they are forced to keep the entire contents of their locker in a crate in their homeroom teacher's room, we rarely have to take a locker away multiple times in the year. Once usually does the trick.
Since I have students create several booklets for notes and helpful hints, I've started creating 2-3 extras that students use when they forget their own copy. The booklets are extremely helpful in keeping all of our elements of writing and sentence construction together for easy access, and I routinely encourage my kiddos to keep them out on their desk during the writing process. By far my most creative idea was writing the essays along with my students, so that when they fail to turn their own essay in, they can peer evaluate my essay which still allows me to assess if they can identify the important parts of the essay as well as identify any suggestions they might have such as improving word choice which is a focus in my room right now.
At the end of the day, this strategy doesn't get "that" kid to remember his/her things when coming to class, but it does ensure that they don't waste 15 min going back to their locker (our team lockers are on a completely different hall than where we teach) thereby getting behind while they are out of the room and me having to explain the directions all over again (which is even more aggravating). At the end of the day, it keeps my entire class on the same page within the same time frame, and that, for me (and "that" kid), is time well spent.
Don't ask about lack of writing utensils.... whole other story, lol........
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