Do your kids covet your notebooks? This blogger’s daughter does!

My darling 15-year old daughter … sent me a text asking if she could have one of my “little black notebooks.”

I found this very amusing. I can remember being about 8 years old, maybe, and poking around in my dad’s desk where he kept some small notebooks. I saw one that I really wanted, but I couldn’t ask him for one like it since that would reveal that I’d been snooping in his desk, which was forbidden!

But the blogger quoted above goes on to point out that a blank notebook can be a great educational tool:

I spend a fair amount of time with teenagers and have found … they can be random thinkers, desiring to fit with others while stretching to show their own identity. Structure can be limiting and limiting means disuse. So what’s the solution?

A plain Moleskine (or inexpensive equivalent) is a great start. They have the freedom to customize the books however they like. They are not bound by forms and templates and can capture what they need to know and how they need to know it. I’m sure there are many who feel without structure the students will be lost and miss valuable information. Ah, but do they have to?

By teaching our students the value of just capturing information rather than getting hung up on the formatting and structure, we curtail the “Hunh? I don’t remember that.” When they ask, “When’s the test again?” you can respond, “Check your book. You did write it down didn’t you?” Some may argue it is coddling the students…I disagree. Far too many professionals in the “real world” can’t handle basic information management and consistent capture is the key starting place for this skill.

I agree– I think keeping a notebook is a great habit to encourage at a young age.