Chapter 4: Arranging furniture

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 This chapter I love because I'm always looking for new and different ways to arrange my classroom. And honestly I've gotten stuck in a rut the past few years and it's rather boring truthfully. 

He suggests: 

  • Defronting the classroom - that means that the desks don't all face the same way. So there really is no 'front' to the classroom. 
  • Cluster the desks away from the vertical surfaces that the kids will be working on. This allows them room to move and the lure of chair is farther away. 
  • Make the tables and chairs all point in different directions. This way again, there is no 'front' of the room. 
  • Move around the room. Don't stand at what used to be considered the front. Move and make the whole room the workspace. 
I love these suggestions on so many levels. I love that there is no front. The kids should be working with each other, not staring at me. There will be times when they will stare at me, but I'm hoping to get away from talking behind the front counter. I want to talk at the side of the room and the back of the room. I want to be all over and not in just one place. Learning requires movement and processing and thinking and room to happen. 

So, how am I going to do my classroom? Well, I gave away 2 of my tables. And I would like to use one table for 3 people, but that might not be practical. But I can arrange the tables, in pairs, in all different directions. So my room might look like this: 


The tables are facing different ways and that means the chairs will be facing different ways. I used to keep the right side of the room kind of empty because my desk is on that side and I had two tables that I put all kinds of crap on. Those tables are gone. 

I just had an idea unrelated to this exactly, but I'm going to move my computer cart to the front of the room behind the front table. When I used to lecture there all the time that was not a good place for it. But if I'm going to be moving around the room and not spending all my time up there, it can live up there. Yes!! Great idea. 

Once we get back from vacation, I will go into school and play with the arrangements. I will figure it out. Of course, it sort of depends on the number of students that I have in each class too. This will hold 32 students but I shouldn't have that many. I'm hoping for 24ish - that would be the perfect number for groups of 3. We shall see. 


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