Teaching Through The Arts

Think about how you position yourself when you read a book, use your laptop or peruse through a newspaper or magazine. Chances are sitting in a hard, straight back chair in front of a small desk doesn't rank high on your list. In fact as I write this I'm stretched out on a chaise in our living room with my computer resting on a portable laptop desk. Fact is we all have preferences as to how we'd like to be positioned when doing these tasks, so the question of why do we limit student options in this same area is a natural one to ask. We need to break out of the mindset of what the classic classroom looks like. Schools need to adapt for the betterment of the students; the students shouldn't have to adapt to the physical aspects of the school. The graduate program I went through at Lesley University met for one weekend a month; we would start at 5pm on Friday and go till 10, then go from 8-5 on Saturday and Sunday. Now for much of that time we were up and moving, but dur...

Since many people who read this blog are teachers, I wanted to pose this question regarding the set-up of the desks in your classroom and if it sends a message to students. The answer to me is a resounding yes. What do rows (called the graveyard setup by a recent student in one our graduate classes who went on to say and we all know that the graveyard setup is deadly) say about the feel of the classroom as opposed to a horseshoe or even a circle if you're lucky enough to have the room to make one? Somewhere along the line I came across the line that in a circle everyone sits in the front row, and I've always liked it. Keith and I set our classrooms up in a circle and feel that it's very important for us to be sitting in that circle-not standing up over someone in a position of superiority-we want to be part of the fabric of the class not set ourselves apart from it. Just something to think about.