The furniture is starting to move. So far it has just been the couch, which also happens to be the heaviest piece of furniture. Yesterday I helped a couple students rotate it 180 degrees to face the wall, to make quieter, less distracting space. Today we rotated it toward the whiteboard and about half a dozen kids piled onto it for a lesson. I’ve always favored giving students as much control of their environment, and allowing the flexibility of movement, so I’m glad to see that they’re starting to take advantage of that freedom.
While I’m not quite sure why the couch has been the first thing to move there are probably a couple of reasons. One is that, compared to the rest of the furniture, the couch is relatively informal. This, in and of itself might have lead the students to consider it a good candidate for rearrangement, but I think it’s also that the couch’s informality meant that no one sat on it on the first day of class; everyone was at one of the desks (bright eyed, bushy tailed and eager to learn). As a result, no one specifically “owned” that space, and negotiating its movement did not involve a large group of people.
The couch also has the space around it so it’s easy to move without having to rearrange a lot of other furniture. It’s not the only piece like that though.
Now, with everyone piling on for today’s lesson, the couch-space has a much more communal feel. Students are becoming more attracted to it when they feel the need for a break, but they tend to go back to the desks when they need to work. Its population shifts over the course of the class.
It’s nice to see that, so far, the students are using the space responsibly. We’ll see how it develops.