In Defense of the Binder

Years ago, I taught English in the Bay Area and served as an advisor for the same group of ten students for all three years of middle school. Looping from one grade to the next helped us get to know each other quite well, so when the time came to design a crest to hang on our door, my advisees knew exactly which emblem to incorporate.

They chose a binder clip.

It was the perfect mascot.

Tigers and bulldogs are cool, but binder clips are neat, snappy, and purposeful. If you flip them upside down, they even look like they have cute little spindly legs. I know my students crafted “Clipper the Flipper” because they saw me use binder clips every day. As an English teacher instructing 80 to 100 students pre-digital everything, culling and clipping stacks of paper was part of my daily life.

I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy of “If I find it helpful, students will, too.” To that end, I was not alone in my binder clip endeavors. During our daily advisory meetings, students were charged with recording to-do lists and due dates in their planners, cleaning out their backpacks and binders, compiling their English portfolios in file folders, and organizing all of their materials, which included hard copies of essays, math worksheets, Post It notes, and crumpled quizzes.

This daily ritual was quite the portal into students’ organizational brains. There were those who meticulously threaded each hole-punched piece of paper through the rings of an unscathed binder, and there were those whose backpacks nearly exploded each time they were unzipped. 

But oh, how times have changed. Where students once knew it was time for a serious cleanse when they could no longer comfortably flip through the contents of their binders, we now live in an age where young adults can hold onto thousands of files titled “Untitled Document” in their GoogleDrives in perpetuity. We can hold onto so much while not actually holding anything at all.

Peek into an elementary classroom and you will find baskets, bins, cubbies, and color-coded shelves. Each space is a masterclass in organization, from how to classify materials to how to divide various zones for twenty-some wiggling children. But in a middle- or high-school classroom? Many are proud to announce that they have gone paperless.

I am no Luddite. I couldn’t imagine teaching without my laptop. There is, however, a mind-body connection that comes with sifting, sorting, separating, and systematizing. As young children, we are taught to stack cups, to sort by color, to line things up or to match by shape. Where is this organizational framework for secondary students in our digital age?

As a teacher, one of my first lessons of the school year is “How to use GoogleDrive.” Students practice labeling files with appropriate titles, sorting documents into folders, and relegating anything that no longer serves a purpose to the trash. This process is iterative and is not limited to devices. Locker purges, backpack refreshes, and daily classroom tidyings are all part of our routine. We can balance the cloud with good old fashioned cleaning. 

I haven’t let go of binder clips just yet. There’s something about seeing everything held together that makes me feel a little more held together. When the semester is running thin and everyone’s energy is dangling by a thread, taking some time to lend order to our spaces helps everyone become more orderly.

Our advisory’s crest featured the tagline “Clip together!” I still hold this call to action dear.