When subbing for a school district I stepped into an elementary classroom with a bewildering variety of furniture. Gone was the traditional desk with either the flip top or open to the rear cubbie for a kid’s ‘stuff’. It looked more like a coffee lounge where one would sip a five dollar Peppermint Mocha with Chocolate Curls Topping and Whipped Creme. There was a plush sofa, desks of varying heights, bean bags, tables and other strange items of furniture. Also a half dozen types and styles of seating, including ‘bouncy chairs’. When confronted by this, my bewildered expression was met with, “this the kind of environment they will be working in as adults”.
Oh, really?
I have worked in many environments as a professional and I have never, ever worked in an environment such as this, sipped an overpriced after work Americano, maybe . . . bit the standard routine has typically been the office partition system, otherwise known as cubbies. Moreover, there is a long road from an eight year old second grader to a twenty two year old college graduate.
Just walking into the classroom I knew keeping order would be a challenge. If there is any living being that has a shorter attention span than a young boy, it has to be a six month old puppy. Most aptly demonstrated by Bil Keane’s character ‘Billy’ from family circus torturous trail when sent on a straight forward errand. Such as this . . . Billy in search of firewood
To be honest, it was something of a circus . . . a school circus. The furniture was a major distraction and also exacerbated competition and pecking order issues. The dominate kids vied for the ‘neatest’ spot, generally the couch while those at the bottom found themselves on the floor. It created a fluid situation where no child had a sense of place and a spot that their could call their own. For kids that had issues of self esteem it could be devastating. As a kid and even as a young adult I was one of those kids lost in the middle. I would have been very miserable, sitting in a corner, feeling very unworthy. And the bouncy chairs . . . something for the boys to fight over and a major distraction that wound them up.
Kids need to learn self-discipline and how to sit still and concentrate – such distractions are self defeating to that end. Over time structure and routines developed for kids as they progressed through the grades. In many ways the same for my grandfather, my father and me. The younger the kid the less time they could be expected to sit still, so more frequents breaks for Elementary School kids to just about none for High School Students. Elementary school kids were taught most subjects in one classroom whereas by the time the arrived in High School every class was in a different room.
Furniture reflected that – elementary school kids had a desk in which they stored their stuff and more mobile high school kids had their locker. Both provided a spot that was their own ‘place’ at school. From my own experience it provided some security and belonging.
In the classic elementary school modality the aforementioned traditional desks were laid out in geometric rows with an aisle to each side and front and back. Kids were at least an arms length apart and teacher’s could easily monitor the kids from the front of the class and strolling through the class room. Everybody had exactly the same of everything, so there was no competition. Their name was often affixed to the desk firmly establishing ownership and a sense of place.
What I found subbing in a few schools was variation in layouts . . . departures from the grid. Teachers were experimenting with clusters of desks, long rows of desks pushed nearly touching, side to side, in a big u-shape and other variations. As of this writing I don’t know if they were told to do so, or did so on their own initiative. At first I had a few issues with that, being the conservative guy that I am . . . I am not by any means against experimentation and trying different things . . . but you have to have a good reason for doing so . . .
But then, considering that every teacher is as different as his or hers fingerprints, and even more so the delightful young ‘urchins, they are tasked with teaching . . . it makes sense. Desk layout reflecting the individual teachers and his or hers teaching style and personalty. Moreover, I have heard teachers commenting on the new crop of kids . . . well behaved, an absolute handful, good learners, slow learners, etc. And the nature of the curriculum and course work may change. Adapting the desk layout as required from clusters conducive to team learning to the traditional gird more conducive to discipline and individual studies. This flexibility, of building blocks consisting of the uniformly same, traditional desk is also affirming and empowering of the teacher. After all, the are a well educated professional . . . should they know better than anyone else how to arrange THEIR classroom?
As part of the trend towards the diversity of classroom furnishings that have no organic storage is the use of tubs to hold students possessions. When subbing I have found that it is problematic for a couple reasons. When shadowing ‘special needs’ kids this lack of place, including tubs placed in in any unnamed storage cubbie can be unsettling, at times to the point of melt-down. And for all other kids it is counter for similar reasons. Keeping order in a classroom is a challenge. Transitions are an opportunity for kids of any age level to get wound up, and time is lost in efforts to restore order. More so in elementary schools with highly energetic, social and inquisitive kids of short attention span. Class schedules are timed by the minute and time lost going to and from cubbies detracts from classroom time. Far better to keep it all at the desk. Also removes one more excuse for a kid to use to just get up and wander around . . .
Trust me . . . I’ve been there.
Of all the changes in classroom furniture there is one ‘innovation’ that stands out as extremely practical and effective . . . that is the kidney shaped table where the teacher sits on one side and three or four kids on the other. It comes as close to possible to one to one interaction. Eye to eye there is the nuanced and perceptive mentoring that dials in specifically on the child and the help with whatever task or concept they need help with.
As I consider giving flexibility to the teacher to adapt and adjust as they see fit . . . traditionally there were chalk boards on almost all walls of a classroom. Now, or course they are ‘marker-boards’. In this the front of the class room can change . . . if a teacher decides to cluster in groups facing each wall, then there was a board to use. With the advent of ‘smart boards’, there is a ‘front’ to the classroom as the ‘smartboards’ that I am acquainted with are firmly fixed to wall wall as they work in conjunction with a ceiling mounted projector. It will be interesting to do a little homework and see if there are mobile smartboard solutions out there, especially ones that can fit a school’s budget . . .