Seating Chart Woes

The perfect seating chart is elusive. It's hard to find the ideal spot for each kid, because some kids need to be in front, because of seeing difficulties. Then there the kids who have IEPs, which stands for Individual Education Plans (for various learning disabilities or differences), and it requires that they receive "preferential seating," which basically means that they need to be up front. I even have some kids with hearing issues, so they need to be pretty close, too.

But mostly, it's hard to do because you must separate all friends, as far apart as possible, as well as everyone who might someday become friends, usually due to a badly designed seating chart.

People who only remember school as a student might think that this is mean, since that is how they always took seating charts themselves, but teachers understand perfectly the art of making a good seating chart.

Actually, anyone in a classroom trying to get 30 kids to do something will immediately understand this phenomenon. It really is absolutely amazing how different your class can be if you have a bad seating chart versus a good seating chart.

Quite a bit of time is spent by teachers trying to get their students to stop talking to their neighbors and pay attention, or do their work, or copy the notes. This time can be almost (not quite, because they still are kids, and they can't be perfect, nor do I even want them to be) eliminated if you manage to find that perfect arrangement of desks and kids.

Of course, even the best seating chart doesn't last forever. You finally figure out all sets of friends in your class, and design the chart carefully around that, remembering to completely surrounding the extreme talkers with "pockets of silence," or kids who will not talk to anyone except their own friends (who are, blessedly, in another of my classes, or better yet, another team), or kids who are very shy, or kids who are enemies, or kids who are respectful and won't talk inappropriately.

You remember that child A hates child B, but their hate is volatile, and apt to go off in class unexpectedly.

You remember that the 1st 9 weeks, you had child F and child I next to each other, and they passed notes, even though they never actually talked, before or since the chart was changed.

But still. It doesn't last forever, since kids are resilient. They make new friends. So, after the entire 9 weeks, most kids have become comfortable, and are back at the talking game, so it's time to spice things up again and move them around, so they're not quite as comfortable, and they'll get back to the task at hand (learning), instead of what they have recently begun doing (socializing).

So every single 9 weeks they get new seats. They begin whining about 3 weeks before the grading period is over, saying they want new seats now, and they are tired of sitting here; whine, whine. Students who had no trouble days ago suddenly cannot see the board, the front of the classroom, or even you standing there, trying to get their attention.

"But Ms. Language Arts Lady! I left my glasses at home, so I didn't seeeeeee the homework written on the board!" (To which I respond, "Well, since I told you to write it in your planner as I was assigning it, and I have reminded you every day this week it was due, you didn't need to see it." They have no response to that.)

Finally, I spend the hours that it takes and redo the chart, which I then immediately implement, because the dumb things took me so long to do.

The second I say, "Pick up all your stuff and stand by the door," the whining begins again, but this time, they love their current seats, and they don't want to change, please, please, they'll be good, they promise.

12-year-olds are so tiresome sometimes!

I get them all seated in their new seats, amidst groans, moans, and eye-rolls, and finally get them settled.

They glance around, seeing how far away their friends are from their currently location. They figure out how far away from my desk they are, and then from where I generally stand to teach, and from the door. They realize (and announce at the top of their lungs) that I have arranged them boy-girl-boy. They remember (after remind them) they were boy-girl-boy (or maybe girl-boy-girl).

They analyze the kids on either side, searching for allies.

They glance nervously at me, since I am giving them all warning glances.

Honestly, I do enjoying moving them, because I can generally count on at least 1 full week of blessed silence, or at least quiet. It's really amazing. They have to get comfortable again before they'll start their chatting.

Or maybe it's just they use up all their noise in one burst when I move them, in complaint and general grumbling.

Maybe I should move them every week.

Maybe not.