The "I Can't Trust Myself" Drawer

 For some students, sometimes the hardest part about completing an assignment is hanging onto the paperwork. 

When I taught math and science at another school, I had a drawer in the corner of my classroom for students to store their work in. It was for work in progress and nothing else. I called it the I Can't Trust Myself" Drawer.

I would say to the kids, “If you don’t think you can trust yourself to hang onto today’s work and have it ready to finish tomorrow, put it in the drawer.” A lot of kids took advantage of this. Mind you, they had a notebook they could have put it in, but for some reason, the drawer resonated with them. 

They loved it and they used it. 

I think it took some pressure off them in terms of managing all the paper they dealt with during the day. 

Now, since I only teach science and every student has a science notebook, I say, “fold your work in half and put it in the pocket of your science notebook.” 

That seems to work - except for the scholars who can’t seem to find their science notebooks on a given day. Where these “lost” notebooks go, I have no idea, since they never leave the classroom and I have very specific places to store them in the classroom. 

Maybe I need a, “I can’t trust myself to hang onto this notebook” drawer?