Into the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Starting Student Teaching

Chapter 17: Organizing Your Room to Suit Your Needs

Chapter 17 Organizing Your Room to Suit Your Needs No two classrooms in a school are identical. Although the physical layout of the walls and windows may be the same, each classroom is unique, reflecting the personality of the teacher. Teachers move the desks around, decorate the walls, set procedures, enforce policies, and establish routines that reflect their unique teaching perspectives and personalities. In this chapter, I share my own experience with creating a classroom in which both students and teacher could thrive. Establishing your classroom policies, routines, and procedures has double benefits. First, it will make your classroom a predictable place for students to learn and work. Second, it will save you energy, patience, and aggravation. For example, if students know they are to always turn in their assignment to the inbox on your desk, there will be less confusion, less student uncertainty, and fewer lost papers. You and your students will spend less time looking for missing assignments and neither of you will have that awful feeling in the pit of your stomach about a missing grade and what to do about it. Setting policy, procedures , and routines early in the school year helps students and teachers get off to a good start. Preserving Sanity, Good Humor, and Patience A few things about being a teacher and interacting with students set my nerves on edge. I try to limit or eliminate those situations. For example, one thing I cannot tolerate is a group ofstudentshangingaroundmydeskaskingforthings important to them but trivial to me. A student’s request for adhesive tape while I was signing and recording an absentee form, which could have administrative and grade consequences, was an aggravation. I sought to eliminate the aggravation without being negative to the students. I did three things to make the students more self-sufficient. First, I created a students’ table by the door of my classroom. Second, I created a student supply box and placed it on the table. 148 Becoming the Teacher You Want to Be Third, I created a folder with absent student assignments and also placed it on the table. The student table was a good idea that met both student and teacher needs. The teacher’s desk was my territory, and the students’ table was theirs. I placed the students’ table by the door to the hallway. It contained hall passes to the office, nurse, library, and guidance office, and a sign-out sheet for leaving the classroom, as well as the student supply box. It also held jackets, textbooks, notebooks, and so forth, which students had left behind; it was a mini lost and found. Students were welcome to hang out and rearrange the contents of the student table, which they were not welcome to do at my desk. For the student supply box, I found a red plastic box with a lid and filled it with items that students frequently requested—bandages for small cuts, white-out liquid, transparent tape, scissors, markers, colored pencils, a paper punch, and rulers. The students were free to open the box and look for whatever they needed. They also let me know when items needed replenishing. I also created an absent student work file in which I put worksheets and other assignments for students who were absent. I took a bright yellow folder, labeled it “Absent Student Work,” and put it on the student table. If a student was absent, I put the individual’s name on a worksheet and put it in the file. I also had a form that I filled out in the event that the assignment did not require a worksheet. The form pictured a person lying on a couch and said, “While you were sick. . . .” I wrote the page number or whatever and stuck it in the file. Students checked the folder when they returned to class. The system reduced the number of students at my desk, freed me from looking in my planner to see what assignment was given when, and reduced the need for looking for the missed worksheets and handouts. The folder saved me a great deal of irritation and work. These three—students’ table, student supply box, and absent student work—prevented students from congregating at my desk and clambering for my attention. This helped preserve my good humor and patience. I encourage you to set up your room to limit the types of things that fray your patience and detract from your ability to teach. Sometimes the solutions are simple...