In World War II, British Engineers were studying aircraft returning from bombing runs and noticed that the tail sections and wings were all shot up.  So they decided to beef up those sections with armor.  It didn’t make a dent in the number of lost planes.  Why?  The Germans were aiming for the engines and cockpits and finding their marks.  These planes were not making it back home for “analysis” by the Engineers.  The planes needed armor on the engines and cockpits…not the tail and wings.  Are we missing the obvious in the school planner business?

I’ve talked to a number of schools that have decided that school planners are a poor use of taxpayer money.  In some sense they may be right.  I’ve talked to countless parents that find their child’s school planner stuffed behind the sofa cushion with the first 2 weeks of school filled out and nothing past that. Or it’s jammed under the car seat and only very little writing in it at all.  But we may have learned the wrong lesson.  Is it really that student planners are not effective or is it something else we’ve overlooked.

I’ve also talked to teachers, parents and students that see some students using their day planner to the max.  Each day is filled out and it’s used exactly as designed.  These students say they couldn’t live without their planner.  For many, getting that planner is an exciting event in the semester.

I don’t have statistics to back this up, but with antidotal feedback I’d say that 50% of academic planners end up unused.  That effectively doubles the cost for those school planners that are used (and of the 50% that are used, what metric is being moved with use of the planner and can it be measured?).  But more importantly is the potential lost opportunity for those students that don’t use their planner because they are quite likely the ones that need them the most!  The kids that really use them would make due with a Big Chief pad and Number 2 pencil…they just get it.

So what is the best planner students can use?  Well, that depends on what you mean by “use”…if the question relates to “writing down assignments” then we have one potential answer to the best student planner.  If we are talking about imparting skills that will transcend homework assignments then we have a whole new conversation.

A waste of money or lost opportunity?  Next time.

Still, the academic planner industry as whole may have missed the boat and taken the school planner market along with them.  When the big education planner companies like Premier came along the graphic designers and marketing organizations went into action to make visually appealing daily student planners.

But that’s were we went wrong.  Like medicine that tastes bad but is good for you, that beautiful student day planner with all the fun stuff on the page may have become just another layer of “noise” in a student’s world that is begging for “less” noise.

It’s one of the reasons that magazines like “Simple” have become so popular…we all know that we are overloaded…we have stimulus overload from the TV to the checkout line at the grocery store.  Add in hectic work and personal lives and it’s easy to see why the current research is indicating it’s this crazy busy lifestyle is causing much of the ADD and ADHD symptoms we see in students and adults alike.

So is all that Flash really a help or is it just good old marketing 101?  Remember the Generic isle in the grocery store about 20 years ago?  The isle with the white and black labels?  Who wouldn’t want full color, factoid packed, brain teased, busy student planner over a blander, simpler planner designed for the student of today (who happens to have a pretty high chance of being ADD/ADHD)?

Something to think about.  More thoughts in my next post.