Middle school kids need space too!
How many of you have been inside a 2nd grade classroom? Most second grade classrooms have tables or desks for the students to sit at and are usually gathered toward the center of the room. You will also find a reading area where there is carpet and special seating to get comfy to read. Sometimes you will even find extra seating for small group work or centers, and all this while there still is plenty of space for students to move around freely without crowding one another.
Step into a middle school classroom and you will find a place for students to sit, usually desks, crammed into the classroom with little variety or variation to the layout due to lack of space. You will rarely find a reading area, and if you do it is limited to a shelf squeezed in a corner hopefully with age appropriate books. Small groups, forget it. The only way that happens is if they spill into the hallway.
Something happens to the classrooms as students get older. The students and the desks get bigger, but the classrooms don't!! Your second grade classroom is the same size as the 7th grade classroom, but the kids got bigger and so did the furniture. Bottom line, WE NEED MORE SPACE>>>>
We need to revamp the classroom for the older students. They start losing that creative mindset when you shove them in desks for eight hours a day and don't let them move and change it up. They are just little kids in big bodies, they want that reading area, small group setting, and the chance to sit in a different environment. I remember as a student that science class was my favorite; not because I liked science, but because I got to sit at a lab table in a different chair instead of a desk. These little things matter. Students want variety, they NEED variety to keep them engaged. Our classrooms need variety, not just in our curriculum, but in the space we teach that curriculum.
I would love to have part of my room carpeted and have some table options instead of all desks. I would love to have an additional white board on a wall to have 3 walls with whiteboards instead of a large blank wall I can't hang things on.
I think these small changes would make a big impact on the attitude and creativity of our middle school students. Give them the space to be creative and what them excel!!
Step into a middle school classroom and you will find a place for students to sit, usually desks, crammed into the classroom with little variety or variation to the layout due to lack of space. You will rarely find a reading area, and if you do it is limited to a shelf squeezed in a corner hopefully with age appropriate books. Small groups, forget it. The only way that happens is if they spill into the hallway.
Something happens to the classrooms as students get older. The students and the desks get bigger, but the classrooms don't!! Your second grade classroom is the same size as the 7th grade classroom, but the kids got bigger and so did the furniture. Bottom line, WE NEED MORE SPACE>>>>
We need to revamp the classroom for the older students. They start losing that creative mindset when you shove them in desks for eight hours a day and don't let them move and change it up. They are just little kids in big bodies, they want that reading area, small group setting, and the chance to sit in a different environment. I remember as a student that science class was my favorite; not because I liked science, but because I got to sit at a lab table in a different chair instead of a desk. These little things matter. Students want variety, they NEED variety to keep them engaged. Our classrooms need variety, not just in our curriculum, but in the space we teach that curriculum.
I would love to have part of my room carpeted and have some table options instead of all desks. I would love to have an additional white board on a wall to have 3 walls with whiteboards instead of a large blank wall I can't hang things on.
I think these small changes would make a big impact on the attitude and creativity of our middle school students. Give them the space to be creative and what them excel!!