Recently, I was in the check-out line at my neighborhood grocery store when I noticed an ingenious sign: “For faster service, please empty your basket.” Over the years, I’ve seen signs that read “Please empty basket,” but this new version gives customers an incentive – after all, who wants to wait in line any longer than necessary? A classic win-win solution. The customer gets faster service, and the clerks and store managers have a more streamlined checkout process.

This type of win-win approach is central to my work as an academic counselor working with high school students who are often “organizationally challenged.” Parents and educators are often dumb-founded when I inspire a seemingly unenthused pre-teen or adolescent into creating organized binders, writing in planners, and just generally being more proactive.

As I often tell students, adopting better organizational and time-management skills are steps in the journey to help them get wherever they want to go and follow whatever passions they dream to pursue. Why wouldn’t they want to get their homework done faster, and better, so they were more able to pursue whatever passions their heart desires?

Instead of spending forty-five minutes trying to find out what the homework assignment is (by calling a classmate, texting a friend, checking the often incorrect school website or sending smoke signals to a distant acquaintance) the student with the assignment written down in a planner would be done with it and on to something more fun or meaningful — going for a run, enjoying some quality Wii time, mastering those Eric Clapton guitar solos, or whatever else he or she is passionate about. In another familiar scenario, instead of completing a homework assignment and then losing it – which every student in my last workshop admitted to doing at least once in the past six months – getting organized would help them always know where their homework is, and avoid that dreaded pit-in-the-stomach, I-spent-an-hour-on-that-assignment-but-am-about-to-get-a-zero feeling.

Whenever I pose these scenarios to students, they nod knowingly and get a little wide-eyed. I can tell it has suddenly dawned on them that there are BENEFITS to being more organized! This will actually HELP THEM!

In the news, we often hear studies citing how students, especially boys, are falling behind in school, dropping out of high school at alarming rates, and not graduating from college. In my office, we see boys and girls who were previously overwhelmed  be transformed by the simple act of someone listening to what their personal dreams and aspirations are, and then helping them get on the path to those dreams, whether it involves improving their grades, finding a summer job, or developing their artistic talents. Often it’s the personal goals that drive the academic ones. By listening more to our students, we can encourage the development of their own intrinsic motivation and engage them in the process of becoming more enthused learners and contributors to society as a whole.

A few weeks ago, New York Times reporter Winnie Hu wrote a piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/education/01schools.html) on the personalized learning plans that sixth graders at Linwood Middle School in North Brunswick, NJ, are charting for themselves – as Hu notes, “electronic portfolios containing information about their learning styles, interests, skills, career goals and extracurricular activities.” These personalized portfolios are a wonderful way for students to start to see the win-win in becoming more actively involved with their educational experience.

Of course, career plans and personal interests can change over time, but the earlier we allow children to dream and develop their own aspirations, the more likely we are to get them engaged in their own learning process and feel they have a reason to be pursuing their educational opportunities to the best of their abilities.  When parents and educators work to promote more personalized learning, they empower and inspire students to work to their personal potential. Which is a win-win for everyone.

I rarely talk about my previous (and incredibly brief) stint in finance – in fact, its usually not even on my biography. Working at the investment bank was the best and worst job I ever had. It was the best job because it taught me what type of work environment I did not want to spend time in, and what type of boss I did not want to ever be – truly valuable lessons to learn right out of college. I learned that I loved working with people, and that my great relationships helped my books move to the front of the que and got me extra help when needed. I also realized that I hate inefficiency, and that spending an entire weekend (11 pm on Saturday night) re-doing a powerpoint that would barely be glanced at on Wednesday morning was not a good use of my lifetime.

I think that every experience, whether good or bad, gives us the opportunity to learn – which is a  lot of what I talk about today with my students. For instance, one of my students hates her club sport team, and for good reason. But talking about what she is learning about herself in why she doesn’t like her coaches and the way they run the team gives  her the opportunity to be more discriminatory when choosing a new club team. In a sense, she now knows what to look for and how to find the right team for her in the future.

Tomorrow, February 18, I am speaking at a luncheon for the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance (see info here). Its a great organization, so if you are up in Sonoma, hope you can join us – its at noon at Saddle’s Restaurant.

Here is one of the parent responses:

I wanted to let you know that your book (from Amazon.com) arrived this past weekend.  I have read almost a third of it, and I already know that my nine years old is a Scattered Charmer.  I also think that my husband and I, as parents, may be a bit too involved.  Yikes.  Anyway, I am really enjoying it and look forward to learning more about your strategies.  Even though our son is in fourth grade, a lot of your information can be applied to elementary-aged children.

To that end, thank you Los Altos Town Crier and Traci Newell for your article on the book, which is linked here.