Thursday, April 30, 2009

I Was a Paper Junkie

I was a paper junkie.

My first year teaching, I was so scared of speeding through a lesson and not having something for the students to do that I used to run off several copies of "fun" assignments each day (crosswords, games, whatever I could scrounge up each morning from the old file cabinet in the closet I'd inherited as an office). This inevitably added up to two or three sheets of paper per student per day. And this would be stuff I'd never even see again once I'd handed it out. I'm not even counting the handouts I'd work up for the day's lesson.

But, I was a paper junkie.

That first year teaching, we had a copy limit of somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand copies per teacher. I think I maxed out in January.

Like I said: I was a paper junkie.

I used to pride myself on the physical weight of my mid-term and final exams. Students in my Latin classes used to complain about their hands cramping up and I'd boast about the 22 page final exam I'd written in Greek History class back in college.

I was unrepentant.

When I came to my present school, I found three copy machines whereas my previous school only had two for almost twice as large a faculty. I was in heaven.

I once made a copy of a seventeen page annotated version of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' for each student in all five sections of the American Lit class I was teaching at the time. (I hope the statute of limitations is over for that one...).

But I think the most egregious use of paper came when I used to run off fresh copies of everyone's poems in Poetry Club so that we could all mark 'em up during workshops. I easily made a half-dozen copies of each poem per each one student in that club. In other words, each student would wind up with six copies of the exact same poem. And we used to read lots of poems.

But I was a paper junkie.

I used to print out copies of ebooks. (I remember that at that first school, I'd been given a curriculum guide on CD and I actually decided to print the whole thing).

I used to print out my grades in triplicate.

I used to forget to fill the toner cartridge in my desktop printer and have to go back and reprint dozens of copies of a twelve-page test.

I even got a special card from the office supply store to make copies in bulk.

And then I woke up.

I think it was the year our school moved to 1:1 computing. No one in administration suggested not using paper (in fact, I don't think any of them had even heard the term 'blog' at that point). None one on the facilities staff said anything (and they were the guys who hauled in those ton-sized pallets stacked with reams). I think it was really just a matter of me sitting down and playing around with this new laptop and before long realizing that I'd written hundreds of pages worth of notes and ideas and meeting minutes and lesson plans and hadn't printed a single piece of paper.

And why hadn't I printed anything from my new laptop?

Because I couldn't figure out how to.

That's how this whole foray into paperlessness began. It wasn't that I was some tech wizard. I certainly wasn't all that environmentally conscious. I barely used the Internet with the exception of reading bulletin boards and getting my morning news.

Rather, the reason I got into paperlessness was because I was too dumb to figure out how to hook a printer up to my new laptop and too stubborn to ask the IT department to do it for me.

I totally slacked my way into paperlessness.

It was only once I was there that I realized what had happened. And then the epiphany came: "Hey buddy," my mind said to me, "you don't really need paper to teach a class".

And so, I didn't go back. And over the last three years, I've been on a crazy journey where I've easily saved over 40,000 sheets of paper. And that doesn't even count the paper my kids have saved in my class. Whereas I used to like to brag that kids would burn through two notebooks over the course of my AP Latin class, now not a single notebook ever needs be opened.

Just for fun today, I cut-and-pasted the contents of a single student blog into Word. This was a blog that a student in my Latin II class has kept this year. So we're talking from September to April. When that blog popped up in 12pt font as a Word document, it turned out to be 107 pages long.

107 pages.

Written by a 15 year old.

In one class.

If nothing else, my experience with a paperless classroom has proven to me demonstrably that there is just so much waste that we take for granted in education. And it's an ongoing eyeopening experience for me to see just how much a change a little change can make.

The old me never understood that. But he was a paper junkie.

20 comments:

  1. Preach it, brother! (You ARE a brother, right, not a sister?) I love how you got there: laziness/ignorance. I need to share this with some people.

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  2. Just took a second to read your bio and saw that you are a brother. Preach on.

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  3. I love laziness. What a great way to go green!

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  4. Great story and funny how you happened into paperless. I also prided myself on the insane amount of work students did in my Academic Biology class (read: insane amount of papers crammed into two large 3 ring binders.) If you are the king, I am the queen. When we were receiving a laptop cart from a grant, my students asked what we were going to do with the laptops. I said, go paperless. I was pretty close last year. This year, I am using more paper as I have many more students without Internet. Next year will be different. We will be one to one and students may not be able to get online, but they can have the information and can compose for upload at the start of class.

    No matter how you got there, you are doing incredible things!

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  5. If the printers in the library could read, they would be crying for joy-- if they could cry. And the reams of paper would run into the courtyard and do a little dance.

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  6. What a self reflection! I enjoyed reading this because I think we all are junkies in some shape or form...maybe it's paper or coffee for teachers. But in any case we sometimes accidentally do the right thing and we realize what a difference this mistake has made. This blog is inspirational and it certainly makes you think about what one person can do to make change happen. I agree with 1 to 1 computing if eventually it makes the kind of dramatic paperless change that occurred in this example. I have cut back dramatically as I've taught more years now. I think using paper like the teacher mentioned is sort of a crutch for extra work for students. Try and be creative, use laptops, discussion or read alouds may be alternatives to more paper waste. Paperless classrooms are the next big trend it seems as we move further into the digital and technology age. Going green is the way to go, sometimes laziness has its place in society!

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  7. I teach second graders with 5 computers in my classroom. I use whiteboards to practice skills. What else can I do to go paperless?

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  8. Thank you. Our 400 student school spent almost $10,000 this year on paper and toner. As a frugal office manager, this makes me crazy! Those funds could do so much more than make copies.

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  9. Good story. I'm also a teacher, facing the same problems. Thanks for the post.

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  10. I use whiteboards to practice skills. What else can I do to go paperless? This blog is inspirational and it certainly makes you think about what one person can do to make change happen.

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  11. I said, go paperless. I was pretty close last year. This year, I am using more paper as I have many more students without Internet. Next year will be different.

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  12. it seems as we move further into the digital and technology age. Going green is the way to go, sometimes laziness has its place in society!

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  13. I enjoyed reading this because I think we all are junkies in some shape or form...maybe it's paper or coffee for teachers.

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  14. We will be one to one and students may not be able to get online, but they can have the information and can compose for upload at the start of class.

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  15. Wish you could have taught at the inner city school where I taught for so many years. We would have been good friends. 8-) We could have advocated together for 1:1 and paperless. I didn't get too far.

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  16. Hurrah! I have been paperless now for two years and must admit to getting sadistic pleasure from watching the copy junkies around the photocopiers stressing out. Freedom! Freedom!

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  17. Laziness is the reason for most great inventions. For example, the wheel.

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  18. That is a good idea to have student’s blog after class. Many students will like using the computer much better than writing their ideas on paper. Another plus of having your students do their assignments online is they can teach you neat things about technology that will blow you away!

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  19. Hi! we have to recognized that laziness sometimes make us more intelligent.

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  20. It's important to see yourself of great value.

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