There’s nothing quite like walking into my classroom the morning of parent orientation. It is clean, quiet, and peaceful. Everything is in its place, and the only remaining clutter is safely tucked away behind the doors of my storage cabinet.

When the students arrive for the first day of school, they will bring with them supplies, jackets, lunch boxes, and a few of their little treasures that inevitably end up on my desk. That kind of “clutter” is natural, an unavoidable byproduct of having stud...