I started teaching nine years ago in inner city Detroit. I had a Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and absolutely no classroom experience. The first half of my first year was an absolute train wreck. I had no clue what I was doing and I only survived because my principal believed I could do it (and didn’t want to find another teacher mid-year). I taught in that school for two more years with relative success. Then, in 2013 I moved to Somalia, Africa to run a middle school for $200 a month. My parents, family and friends all thought that I had lost my mind. Those years teaching in Africa were the most amazing and eye opening experiences of my life.
93% of all the students who graduate from that school, leave Somalia on full ride scholarships to another country. Those kids worked harder than any other student I had met before. They were motivated to learn because education was their ticket out.
In 2016, I came home and began teaching stateside once again. Honestly, it was “teacher shock”. I had gone from working with students who gave their all 100% of the school day and half of the night, students who learned to speak a language in a matter of months and who were eager to learn more, to students who could care less, have no problem throwing a chair at a teacher, and calling her horrible names.
So, the question that’s been on my mind since coming home has been “what was it that made my kids in Africa so much more dedicated and passionate?” I am sure we can think of many reasons and most of them are out of our control. But I am sure that we would love to see our students become more dedicated and passionate about their education, eager to come to school everyday and begging to learn more. I am confident that by creating more autonomous classrooms we can see those changes in our students.
As professionals, we expect some level of autonomy within our classrooms, and when we are not afforded this opportunity, we often become frustrated with the work we are doing and this impacts our ability to be the best teachers we can be. Our students are no different.
When we take away our students ability to take charge of their learning, we inhibit their ability to learn by creating unnecessary frustration. Through my work this year, I tried three specific things: flexible seating, self directed learning and utilizing technology to provide choice. (You can see more about this work here.)
I think the implementation of flexible seating impacted my students the most. I did not have financial support so I needed to find a cheap way to implement flexible seating. I took to Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, consignment shops and Five Below. Through the use of these outlets was I was able to come up with 13 different seating options for about $200 including: couches, recliners, crate seats, yoga mats, bouncy chairs, stability ball seats and yoga blocks. Once I had the seating, I immediately changed my classroom.
The first day of implementation I went over the rules and explicitly taught how to use the seating. We modeled appropriate and inappropriate use of seating and I made it very clear that I reserved the right to move anyone at any time. Then, I gave students assigned seats and spent the week rotating the students through each type of seating until they had experienced each type of seat. After that, I wanted students to have a “home base” so I allowed them to choose their seats each week using my Dojo points to determine the order students picked seats. This served as their seat during morning work and teacher time. During centers and independent work, students were allowed to work throughout the room.
On my part, this transition to flexible seating forced me to give up a lot of control. I had to get used to the idea that students may be moving, or bouncing on a ball and that was difficult. I also had to be more organized and strategic in the placement of classroom and student materials because the students no longer had desks that they could just put everything in. Once I was able to get over these minor obstacles, my classroom was entirely different. The little battles like “sit down”, “do your work” and “stop playing in your desk” were no longer heard. Instead, students were engaged in more productive and collaborative work.
I feel that my transition to flexible seating has really helped to create autonomy in the classroom which has increased student engagement and decreased off task behavior by 15% and decreased the number of referrals by 50%.