Flexible Seating Is Not its All Cracked Up to Be ...I've Tried It
If y'all've spent more a infinitesimal browsing teacher Instagram, then you know near flexible seating. Teachers are ownership scoop rockers, exercise balls, and squishy stools in droves and using them to replace traditional desks, all in the proper name of focus and innovation.
Information technology sounds like a good thought in theory—and it sure *looks* practiced—merely is flexible seating really all it's chalked up to exist? Later trying flexible seating in my classroom for an entire yr, I have to say that I think this trend is overrated.
Showtime things kickoff, I know there are people already doubting me and disagreeing. Some of y'all read the title of this article and immediately thought, "HOW DARE HE SPEAK Downward ON THE E'er-SO-SACRED SEATING OF FLEXIBILITY!" Y'all're probably wondering if I'one thousand super old schoolhouse or if I even teach in a modern classroom. (I'm non, and I do.)
Honestly, I get where you lot're coming from, but hear me out.
I tried to love flexible seating. I really did!
I gave flexible seating an honest try for an entire schoolhouse year. (In hindsight, I wish I would've simply tried information technology in a section of my classroom earlier going all out.)
When the seating arrangement got tough, I didn't quit. I kept with it and put my best foot frontward. And I besides loathed every infinitesimal of it. Here'southward why.
When I first decided to take a swig of the flexible seating Kool-Aid, I legit thought I had it in the pocketbook. Whatever literature was out there and whoever was posting nigh it, I was into it, and I was into information technology HARD! I believed wholeheartedly that information technology could and would be the end to many of my teaching troubles and classroom-direction challenges.
So I did what any person does when their centre is assail burn with a called-for desire to exist different and innovative: I transformed my classroom into a flexible-seating jungle. I bought any and every slice of furniture I could. I had beanbag chairs and bucket seats, standing desks and exercise assurance. Nosotros fifty-fifty had recliners, a couch, yoga mats. Yous name information technology; I had it. And let me tell you lot, my classroom was the meridian of Instagrammable perfection.
But then Instagram perfection started to crumble.
Right away, nosotros hit a wall with picking seats. I did what all the manufactures told me to do. I prepare upwardly the routine to teach the children where they learn best, then slowly immune them to select their spots. I did this for weeks on end. Well into the fall season.
FOOY! I don't care who you are. Out of thirty ten-twelvemonth-olds, at least one of them is going to freak out when they don't get what they want. And you know when that happens? Every. Single. Day. Now, I could take very easily taken the time to talk to the student near their feelings, calmed them down, and helped them find their special lilliputian learning cubby … or I could have spent that time facilitating two guided-reading groups. You probably know which one I preferred.
Now y'all flexible-seating believers might want to striking me with the numbers. Research shows that flexible seating improves students attention and focus … Evidence me that research. I've spend countless hours searching for it, and I still tin't observe information technology. Does it even exist? I'm not talking research as in, Oh I did flexible seating, and my students' scores went upwardly, hearsay. I'grand talking, A scientific written report was conducted where children'southward brain waves were monitored while they were engaging in flexible seating … multiple times a year … over the form of their development … and the results were amazing.
We need to rethink flexible seating.
When information technology comes to flexible seating, the biggest kicker for me was just the time involved to suit it. It was a huge time suck just for bones things, similar distribution of classroom materials. For example, w ith flexible seating, in that location's no desk-bound infinite for your students to keep their stuff. So you're left with your inventiveness to figure out where your students are going to proceed their necessities. In theory, it seems great. No messy desks. Everything is in one place. Information technology should totally piece of work. And you know what, information technology does piece of work. However, it takes way longer than it should.
Think nearly it. I could say "Take out your social studies books," and when students have desks, this takes five to 10 seconds. Just if you have flexible seating without any real storage, it might take 10 minutes for Cameron to meander his style over to the cabinet where the social studies books are stored. Then he'll climb on a step stool to fetch them down one at a time to laissez passer them out to his peers. He'll probably start with his friends and will likely stop to chat along the way.
I'm beingness slightly dramatic, merely the fourth dimension suck is real. As much equally I bask having fun in the classroom, I still want students to learn something! I'd much rather allocate this lost time to a stimulating brain break to recharge them for the solar day.
Let'due south requite students alternatives, but don't push flexible seating as the only answer.
At present I do empathize a lot of the reasoning behind flexible seating, and I believe the intentions are mostly skilful. Only before you lot jump on the bandwagon and effort to give your classroom a makeover that you really don't have the money for, I encourage yous to think about other means to bring flexibility into your classroom. For instance, try it for a section of your classroom. Perhaps you can put tire chairs in the classroom library, a couch in a written report section, or a few wobbly stools around a collaboration surface area. Merely information technology doesn't have to be the Entire classroom.
Using chair fidgets, having encephalon breaks, and increasing recess-time release, instead of buying new chairs, can all exist good ways to give students an outlet. Of course, if flexible seating works for you, then, by all means, proceed doing it. However, if you've wondered if it's just a fad or here to stay, you might give it some fourth dimension. Because I think the good ol' student desk works just fine—for now.
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Plus, check out some of our favorite flexible seating options.
Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/flexible-seating-does-not-work/
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