No Desk for Them

A funny article on teachers who don't use desks. I never did. I shoved mine to the back of the classroom and used it to pile up (aka "lose") student papers. Sometimes my 7th grade study hall would re-organize it for me, but I still never sat there. I ran around from the tape recorder to the dvd player to each kid to the computer too much.

But this article does show how desperate some are for school reform - at one point the article says something about how "no studies have been done to prove the effectiveness of not using a desk." Um, we have to do studies for this? I think that it depends on the teacher's style. I used to sit on top of one of the kids' desks and teach, too. In fact, my eighth graders would never sit in one desk, and when I finally asked them why, they said, "Because that's where you always sit, Ms. Cottrell." Gosh, hadn't even noticed it myself.

At the bottom of the article is a great layout of one teacher's classroom. This is my dream classroom. A rolling cart for a projector! Tables for my students so they can work together! Even if I were teaching college (which I am thinking is more and more of a possiblity, because PhD's for college instructors are mandatory, and the number of college teachers is only going to increase), I would want a set-up like this. I think it's great for students of all ages to work together.

"At the Head of Some Classes, Desks Dismissed." (It just goes to show you that when I saw this title, I thought they meant student desks. What teacher sits in front of the classroom and teaches from a desk?) (Matthews, J. The Washington Post. October 3, 2006. Page A08.)