Key to the City of Success

I love the new-paper feel of the first days of school. Shiny faces, wide-eyed with expectation, sharpened pencil points and unused erasers, brand new notebooks and boxes of fresh crayons. It’s like New Years for kids, complete with resolutions to learn more, do better and not get in trouble even once.

Students are remarkably reluctant to mark up the very first piece of paper. It is so fresh and unspoiled, so free of grass clippings and orange Cheetos dust. But a few hot days into August, a metaphorical January 7 rolls around and kids are quick to rip out a lined sheet, scribble their names across the top and sloppy-copy whatever is on the board. The luster of new is gone, and they’ve given up behavioral perfection. School is old school now and homework has already been dished out in hearty helpings.

This is when failure begins, especially for those in the transition year of leaving behind one room with one teacher for all their classes. Middle graders often rotate from class to class and academic requirements increase in due proportion to the weight of their textbooks.

How many students have I seen stuff an unfinished paper in their back pocket believing they would retrieve it at home and complete the assignment? More than I care to number.

“I forgot,” they say the next morning. Or, “I forgot to take my book.”

Organization is like a key to the city of success, not only for pocket-stuffers, but for every student. Here are three simple but helpful things parents can give their children:

1. A three-ring binder with dividers
2. A planner for keeping track of assignments
3. A backpack for carrying books

A binder with dividers will keep handouts and notes from each class separated neatly from other classes. For example, if a student needs a history assignment, he or she will find it quickly behind the “History” divider without looking through every paper in the binder.

Any size planner will do, and many schools sell them. Each day a student writes down his homework assignments for that evening, and also marks the date the work is due. (Parents can communicate with teachers here by initialing completed assignments or writing notes.)

A backpack with small side compartments works best for keeping pencils handy and maybe even a bottle of water, small hand sanitizer and a personal pack of tissues. And the rolling variety helps take the book weight off young shoulders.

If children learn organization at an early age, the skill can become a life-long habit that will not only serve them through their school years, but also help them later in their careers and homes.

Back to School

Think the swine flu scare is long gone? Think again. H1N1 – which could stand for “Hog Nose” – made the rounds of several summer camps the last couple of months, and health officials fear it will raise its snout again in schools this fall.

Parents can help their children in this latest health battle by arming them with personal hand sanitizer bottles for their desks and backpacks.

Most schools provide wall-mounted hand-sanitizer dispensers. Students pause at the door and push a plop into their hands on the way out as well as on the way in to class.

However, having their own little bottle tucked away is a nice safety precaution. Don’t buy the push-down dispenser; get the smaller bottles with a flip-cap lid to prevent leaking and spills.

Hand washing and proper sneezing and coughing techniques are the best way to prevent spreading the virus, officials say. Teach your child to sneeze into her elbow or sleeve, not into her hands. Of course sneezing or coughing into a tissue that can be thrown away is the best method, but that’s not always possible.

So while you’re shopping this week for school supplies and new clothes, pick up several travel-size hand sanitizer bottles, and even a few small tissue packs. With economic woes pinching public school pockets, who knows if there will be enough tissues in the classroom when flu season rolls around?