Few things are as important as seating arrangements in a CI classroom. Sabrina removed the desks from her room this year at Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver and reports success.
In a recent discussion here about changing seating into what Eric Herman calls a “deskless circle”, below, Greg Stout and Eric elaborate on this excellent seating plan for increasing focus from listless high school kids. The idea of no desks for middle school kids is questioned, as those kids need some sort of restraining device.
Greg Stout says:
A few thoughts to those above on the subject of going deskless:
I’ve been deskless for about the past 3 months for 3 different goals.
1) as a counteractive measure for inhibiting slouching/bag digging/etc. 2) for my own practice in staying slow and personal, and not being hell-bent on taking things where I want them to go (I sit on a desk right in front of my kids in their semi-circle…and this intimate setting does it for me as far as putting me in the mood of a fire-side chat and helping me go with the flow). 3) in the hopes that a more intimate setting would foster more of a family feel in one class with an everyone-for-themselves vibe….and no desks is doing wonders for this in that class.
Going deskless is accomplishing all 3 of these goals in one class of juniors with several kids like the students Laurie mentions above (“students who want to sit in the back corner of the room and disconnect”). It’s morphed into a COMPLETELY new group after several classes in the more intimate set-up. I’ll be using it from now on with any class with this problem.
But it did not work well with my middle schoolers. Way too much fidgeting and messing with their classmates next to them. It might work if I space the chairs further apart…will have to try that this week.
But for any class that is not hyper-active and just has disconnect issues, I’d HIGHLY recommend seating the kiddos right up in front of your face.
For a vision of this working very well in action, see it displayed in Eric’s classroom while he does some Power Verb sessions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3rwpK8tPEY
BTW Eric, I just stumbled onto this video and I have to say your delivery is noteworthy. As in I’m literally taking mental notes!!! It’s a simultaneous combination of very energized but completely lax. When you got the numbers from your counters, I thought there was no way you had said the verbs that many times. But, sure enough, you did. It’s your relaxed delivery that made me forget I was hearing the verb over and over, because it wasn’t delivered machine-gun style (YOU’RE GONNA REMEMBER THIS VERB! Daaa–da–da–da–da–da!). Rather, it was calmly “snuck in” in a natural-feeling chat about interesting stuff, hence your kids in the video being so zoned in on the TL flow.
To clarify, going deskless for me has meant pushing my desks back enough to allow room for a semi-circle of chairs directly in front of the board, about one pace away from where I sit on a desk in front of the board.
Eric Herman says:
I love the deskless circle. I only have fidgeting problems with the 3rd & 4th graders, but even they are getting used to the circle. I have now moved that semi-circle as close to the front as I can. Teacher to student proximity is important. I like to sit in the circle when I do a story and laser point from where I am. I also realize that as I MovieTalk, I need to remember to walk around and get closer to the kids. I can FEEL a difference. I think I’ve finally gotten rid of my “teacher need” to cover more and more. I’ve given up all pressure to get somewhere with my students. What we’ve been saying has helped: it’s about being, not doing. I need to try even harder to use the PQA structures/Power Verbs as a way to find out more about the kids (personalize). I do that and the reps will come. At this point in the year, the kids have got the hang of the “game,” so we can have some great PQA sessions.