Last year, I read Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places and was very inspired to create a classroom where every inch of space fostered literacy and learning.
This year, I moved into a new classroom and inherited "stuff" that a teacher who retired long before I came along left behind. I still-- at the end of October-- don't feel settled into my space. I have a feeling that in the coming weeks I'm going to be awfully tempted to take everything out and start over.
The biggest bain of my existence, currently, is my mammoth teacher "desk". It literally takes up 1/4 of one wall of my room, and does little more than collect piles of stuff. That's not the kind of enabling that I need...
In my last classroom, I followed some very sage wisdom and got rid of the teacher desk. I went to Walmart and purchased a $39 computer stand (because I do need a place for that), but gave away my "teacher desk"-- it became the student writing center, and housed all the supplies students might need for writing.
I miss those days terribly! I couldn't leave stacks of paper at the end of the day because there was no place to leave them! I would spread out and work at a table once the students were gone...but I would need to clean that up each night before the kids came in each morning. I didn't have to worry about the kids touching "my stuff" because I really didn't have any! :) Anything that was within hands-reach they were allowed to use, and they used it quite responsibly! There were no power struggles over encroaching on "teacher space" because I had very, very little...and the kids seemed to respect that I had a little bit of space for my own stuff like they had a little bit of space for theirs. In my re-imagining of the classroom, I get to go back to my little island, and leave behind the massive desk. I think that's really going to be the first step in beginning to fell more organized.
No comments:
Post a Comment