School of Thought

By Etti Siegel

Q:Dear Etti, I am dreading the end of school. It’s not what you think. I am excited to have my kids at home. I am looking forward to the less stressful summer schedule. But I dread the avalanche of stuff about to rain on my house! What am I supposed to do with all the papers and projects and notebooks and workbooks? Some of my kids want to throw everything away, but some like to keep everything. And I mean everything! What are the teachers thinking when they send all this home? Help!

-Buried in Projects and Paper

A:Dear Buried in Projects and Paper, Rebbeim and teachers work hard to impart knowledge and would love to share what they have taught all year. Students work hard to master material and do their work well and should be proud of their accomplishments. Parents pay tuition and should be happy to see what their children have learned. So what is wrong with this picture?

It is too much at one time! My advice is for teachers to send home material throughout the year and not send home everything at the end of the school year. Parents have trouble appreciating everything when it all comes home in one big “clear out your desk” moment. Children are not motivated to share because they are overwhelmed at the sheer amount of it all.

But what should you do if it is coming home in one big bag?

This is a dilemma many parents have. Parents want to honor their children’s work but also do not want to keep the many, many items that come home.

Having polled different parents who have the same struggles, here are ideas parents have shared:

• Put everything in a crate. Find time to “ooh” and “ahh” over everything. Choose a few special items and hang them on a bulletin board in the child’s room or in the playroom. Keep changing the displays.

• Buy a big plastic box with a cover. Name and date every item and put them in the box. This becomes a fun rainy-day activity; they get to look though the box and reminisce.

• Fill a bulletin board or closet door with items. When full, take a picture and print the collage. No need to keep the items anymore. The kids begin the new bulletin board or closet door collage. The children might choose to save an item or two that means a lot to them, and those items go in a large plastic storage box.

• Send the projects and sheets to grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They will then call the children up and compliment them, and you have no more guilt about throwing their things away!

• Make a yearbook with one of the photo book companies. Every child gets a yearbook of memories of the year, and the projects themselves can then be thrown away.

• Get clean, unused pizza boxes from your local pizzeria. Every child gets one box each year. The children can label the box, and then choose artifacts to keep, to remember the year best. Over time, you will have thin, labeled, contained, easy-to-store boxes for each of them to look through at their leisure.

• Have a long ribbon hanging in your children’s room or playroom to display the best artifacts of the week, month, or year. Keep them hanging with clothespins. Slowly replace them with new items and discard most of the old, keeping really special ones, or taking pictures of the child holding the really special pieces before discarding. Another mom told me IKEA sells a wire with clips attached for this purpose.

Older grades have less artifacts to cherish, but those special notebooks or meaningful essays should have a place to go.

When the children are all grown, they get to take their box to their homes and share their childhood memories with their children.

Even children who struggled in school should be commended for their diligence and hard work. They stayed in a difficult place and worked there for 10 months! That is praiseworthy!

As an aside, I feel strongly that children should not be ripping their workbooks to shreds. A child spent a whole year filling in information into that notebook/ workbook, and we should respect that. Even if a workbook comes home and is ready for the recycling bin, perhaps placing it in a receptacle nicely shows respect for learning. Shredding is a fun activity and should be encouraged to promote healthy muscles but should be done with circulars and other non-learning items. There is a subliminal message of school negativity we impart when we allow the ripping and shredding with glee to occur. We want to be mindful of what values we are inculcating as our children grow. Some children will shred their workbooks on the way out of school. It is so disrespectful to their teachers and the institution of learning, even if the teacher allows it. Tell your children that you would like to see all the workbooks they used. Show that you care!

I wish you a fun time with each child as you admire all the work they can show you, and I hope the advice taken from other parents is helpful.

Enjoy your nachas, -Etti