There’s an article in today’s Times discussing how organizational experts benefit students, particularly boys. While I’m not opposed to these consultants (I wish they were free and available to ALL students), I do think it’s worth considering the impact that organization might have on high school classrooms.

For all too many classrooms, having a neat binder is enough. Gathering the worksheets serves as a substitute for any kind of genuine inquiry or authentic work. So I could see where a student taught to meet these requirements would enjoy greater academic success.

On the other hand, these skills will serve all students. Those involved in authentic, worthwhile projects probably need the organizational abilities even more.

My concern, though, is for the classrooms where organization is enough, where organization is the starting and ending point, where the goals of the room never move past the clean notebook. It’s tempting to make organization the focus of your assessments, particularly when the alternative — rigorous academic tasks — require so much work.