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Thought for the day.
I learnt a long time ago that desks set out in rows often caused poor behaviour. What poor behaviour? Rows facilitate a sense of class control and allow an immediate assessment of apparent attention (eyes on me).
I learnt a long time ago that desks set out in rows often caused poor behaviour. What poor behaviour? Rows facilitate a sense of class control and allow an immediate assessment of apparent attention (eyes on me).
Rows also make visible any pupil ‘unauthorised’ interaction mainly in turning around to speak to friends off task. Any other cross class off task interactions are quickly spotted, and all facing the front allows teacher judgement of expression.
This supports behaviour.
This supports behaviour.
What behaviour? Attentive, compliant, obedient, concentrated, and whatever word appeals I guess. The thing is, for challenging pupils, the moment a pupil drifts it’s immediately visible and requires intervention.
As an NQT this caused me a lot of angst.
As an NQT this caused me a lot of angst.
I had to intervene not only for quality control puroposes (I didn’t want to have to repeat my teaching) but because others were being affected and watching. I run the room, I needed to intervene. It was exasperating.
My solution? Tables in groups. I could engineer mini communities, splitting up persistent off task characters placing them with peers that would dampen their errant behaviour. Also positioning them out of line of sight from their friends.
Grouped tables also allowed peer support and much of the collegiate aspects of education to be developed. It was also logistically easier to manage as each table could be a focus as required within lesson. All can be done in rows but I found not so easily.
Grouped tables also change the dynamic. The upside is peer discussion, support, viewing others work, group responsibility. The down side is gossip and less visible off task behaviour. However, the downside is much easier to manage with careful seating plans.
Now this sounds like a case for grouped tables and criticism of rows. It’s not. I teach in both and other configurations. Table configuration does not change my pedagogy but can support goals of the moment. In my early career my main goal was behaviour.
Behaviour. What behaviour? Behaviour for learning. What learning behaviours do we want to develop in class? Because once good order is achieved what then? Herein lies a rich journey into pedagogy, capitalising on motivation, group working, peer support, and so on.
Table configuration does not imply pedagogy. For example I (currently) teach in groups and if you saw me teach you’ll observe traditional highly disciplined authoritative teaching. My teaching doesn’t change with table configuration. Table configuration supports other aspects.
So the debate should be an irrelevance. Table configuration should be a teacher professional judgement. A colleague may well thrive under a horseshoe set up, and why not? I *can* teach in groups. A colleague may teach better in rows. What’s the problem?
Mandating table set up may well cause the very problems it may be seeking to resolve. I’ve supported NQTs to achieve better class behaviour by suggesting a table set up.
A one size fits all approach to teaching is a great mistake depending what ‘consistency’ is being sought.
A one size fits all approach to teaching is a great mistake depending what ‘consistency’ is being sought.
These are my personal thoughts, not global declarations of being right.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
