School policy. Desks need to be in groups. It helps the students with collaboration.
Is that a policy in your school or do you have the final say in desk arrangement?
Often it is not policy but the ‘rip-tide of opinion’, a zeitgeist perhaps, that pressures us into actions we would not otherwise choose.
After all anything from the past is under suspicion if not inferior, and this includes classroom and school architecture.
Is there a case for desks in rows all looking toward the teacher?
Teacher sanity?
I am imagining a stressful class, with one or two students who need the ever watchful eye or they play up. A mentally healthy teacher is better for the health of her/his class also; or that an assumption, I should not make?
Another reason.
Explicit teaching, though that has been a bit ‘on the nose’ until lately. However you may want all heads and eyes looking when you have something important to explain. Maybe with the less attentive near you on a tight rein.
Pods are fine for collaboration though, so perhaps we could match the lesson with the seating arrangement. Make the rows and columns of desks the default, and see if having all heads toward the front of the class makes a difference to your stress and their behaviour.
Either way, the indoor furniture of the classroom could be a contributing factor in your stress level.
Improve your mental health of all by rearranging desks?
“When you went to school, you probably spent most of your day sitting in rows. But does this arrangement create the best learning environments?” These are the words of one Jeff Lisciandrello.
He goes on to say I’ve walked through schools with desks in rows and teachers lecturing from the front. And I have to admit, I often assume the school is strict, old-fashioned, and teacher-centered.
I’ve also found myself in classrooms with bean bags, round tables, and sofas, daydreaming about how great it must be to learn in such a classroom. “In this room,” I tell myself, “children engage in student-centred, progressive, and collaborative learning.”
Read his full account here, but don’t assume he is totally convinced that the new fashion is superior.
There is plenty of evidence exists that certain behaviours are changed when desk layout is changed. Jeff Lisciandrello, an education consultant and founder of “Room to Discover”, makes the point that in today’s schools, it’s getting harder and harder to find classrooms with desks in rows. These days, students can be found sitting in pods, at rounds tables, and in even more flexible arrangements.
There is nothing inherently wrong with desks in rows. Educators should think about the goals of each lesson, and arrange their classrooms to match the intended outcome.
Sitting in groups encourages talking; fine when we want them to do so, but we don’t always wish them to.
If some of your stress comes from within the classroom, give rows a trial.