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My Classroom
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29 thoughts on “My Classroom”
Hey Ben! Great photo! Are all those books on the table in French? Are they your fvr library? Also, I noticed that your rules and numbers posters are at a level where you can touch them – are you walking over to touch those posters whenever you need to refer to them? I ask because I currently have those same posters high on the wall and they can only be referenced by a laser pointer (that often doesn’t work!).
Oops. I just read one of your other posts, “Simple little changes, 2015-2016” which answers the question about posters and lasers. Got that one – thanks!
Yeah Don it’s touch and pause and walk this year. Processing time is the keyword here.
Ok, thanks. And the question about the books – in French? FVR?
Yeah FVR in French.
That is a very nice classroom.
It looks like you landed in a great place. No matter what our individual spaces look like, we can all take away the message of simplicity. Ahh….
What about the three white boards on the other wall?
That’s what I was just about to ask. And is that little poster above the numbers chart(?) the classroom rules? If you are on another side of the room, that will make a nice, long, dramatic walk to touch a rule when need be. You have to make up for those lost biking miles somehow!
“No matter what our individual spaces look like, we can all take away the message of simplicity…”
Yup, and things always get so much more complicated once there are students in the room! Funny, that. I sometimes forget.
The message to remember is definitely to keep everything as simple as possible, on all levels, tangible and not. Simple and inviting and encouraging and engaging.
I love your classroom, Ben. It looks so zen. Since you said you are using a poster for the class rules, I assume it’s jGR. I asked an artist friend to make a poster of it for me, and this is what she came up with: http://tprs-witch.com/interpersonal-communication-rubric-3/ What do you think?
That’s a great poster, Judy! I love the student animation going from sitting alert to slumping and dozing off.
I would love to put a poster like that up on my wall but I fear it has too much language on it. I might think of creating images like your student animation one to accompany the scaled down ICSR poster I normally put up.
That looks so cool.
I actually went this back to rows of desks and assigned seats. First today went really well, I think largely because the old-school arrangement just works for me. To each his/her own!
*this year
Classroom arrangement details aside, Ben, you just look so happy!
I think my take is similar to Hosler’s. I love it, but you seem to have far fewer than the 26-33 that I am going to be working with. Any thoughts for taking this model/aesthetic and making it work with larger classes of kids?
I and a few others use the modified half-circle facing each other… kind of like two sets of parenthesis around the “runway”.
John, I teach in a very traditional catholic private school. Rows are the norm. I am free to move the chairs but would be moving furniture all day long to accommodate colleagues who use the room when I am not there only do rows. The idea of a desk less classroom would cause pandemonium. I understand the need for rows with large classes but I can control what I put on the walls. On the large postit style paper, I always post the present tense conjugation of the four irregular verbs. I may not ; on the other hand I also do not want to create a board that gets out of control. I have to sit in the space and do some thinking.
I have used the Horse shoe or modified circle for year. This was with 30-40 students per class. It can give the feeling that all students have front row seat especially when the teacher uses a lot of movement when teaching. Rows all seems to hide students in the back for me.
I actually have the reverse problem this year when it comes to class size…I am wondering what other have to say.
My class sizes in the past 5 years average around 36 per class. This year my class sizes are 8, 9, 14, and 16. I am a bit nervous about this change because I am used to the theater effect as Blaine calls it when he has a big audience.
What are issues that pop up with small classes? I welcome and ideas…
You now have the same class sizes I do, Mike. It does change things when you have fewer than 8 or 9, I think. But I have found 9 or 10 and up through 24 about the same dynamic. It’s easier to teach to the eyes, I think, when there are fewer in the room.
I had a class of 12, my 8th period class, last semester. I found that that class was much more so student directed. Students more likely follow the lead in the big classes whereas in small classes students feel comfortable, quite quickly, with jumping in and taking part or changing the direction of the flow. I found myself forced to go with the flow of student interest in the smaller classes: something I can do better at in the bigger classes, but I was FORCED to do with the smaller class, especially with 8th period at the end of the day.
I also remember at my previous school having a small class (12 kids?) as my morning block class and having to adjust to the sustained quiet attention they gave me. I was not used to it!
… just thinking aloud, Mike.
The king is home 🙂
Yes… the Raja! (I think that’s an Indian king…)
Chill wrote: I have to sit in the space and do some thinking.
I think this is brilliant. Tomorrow, when I go in to work on my room, I’m going to take breaks and sit in each student seat in the room to see how it feels from that perspective. Not my perspective, theirs.
Brilliant Chill.
with love,
Laurie
I love the 3 chair idea. I’ve pushed my tables back and it really opens up the classroom. Currently I have a couch but it is so dominant in the class that I think even chairs behind it would get lost… I’m try to swap it out for three chairs…
Here are my questions:
1. What do those chair kids do when we’re not storytelling – let’s say we’re reading or doing Movie Talk? Do they still have a job? Do they still make a quiz/draw/write?
2. Do those kids keep those chairs/jobs all year or is there a rotation? I can see other kids wanting the chair but not necessarily doing a great job at the job.
Nice classroom, Ben.
Have you gotten the two Emails I sent you?
I don’t know Larry and apologize. I’m swamped here. Will get to them asap. This is a truly high functioning school, on many levels, not the least of which is that it functions on all barrels every day all day. You actually have to read your emails and show up at meetings on time. Dang!
I figured you were swamped there. I certainly know that feeling, having worked in a government school for five years.
I don’t mean to take you off the subject of this post, then, but I’ll go ahead and ask you this, Ben. I want to order those Matava scripts off your store on this website, but how does your being on the other side of the world affect your ability to fill that order? Did you leave someone else in charge of that?
I’m so glad to see your room and to see that happy look on your face! What a wonderful adventure you and Landen are on!
Thanks Dori. Great to hear from you and please give my best to your boys who must be fine young men by now!