The WorkGroup

I have Attention Deficit Disorder and a bony ass. So do many of my students.

I was oblivious to the discomfort of my students at their student desks for many years. Most of my graduate classes involved comfortable seminar rooms. When I took an inservice course in an actual classroom a few years into my career, I realized how terribly uncomfortable student desks really were. Within a half hour, I was feeling claustrophobic and could not, for the life of me, position myself comfortably. At that moment, I felt empathy for every child that had earlier annoyed me with his or her persistent squirming. My school has two types of student furniture. There is a two-piece, which consists of a small table and a separate chair, and what I refer to as the “uni-desk,” a one piece contraption that neatly confines chair, writing surface and student in one area. A variation even offers a book rack below the chair. The two piece offers some variation of position and flexibility, unless there are a great many in perfectly straight rows in a too-crowded classroom. The student can pivot either way, and given a large enough room and a liberal teacher, a student may even be able to stretch his or her legs out, or even cross them if so desired. The one piece is the worst form of desk possible. It allows for now backward, forward or right side motion. Most are only slightly curved and allow no variation for the size, shape or weight variations among students.

With that in mind, several years ago when our school library underwent massive renovation, I pounced on the opportunity to corral the makings of my dream classroom, 10 tables and wooden chairs to go around them. I cleared it with the powers that be who were, at the time, interested in design innovation, particularly since it didn’t involve any money.

After the shock of seeing tables instead of neatly arranged unidesks in my room, the students’ reaction was immediately positive. They had full range of motion, and the full size, high backed library chairs even had what I refer to as an appreciable “butt wedge” for added comfort. Moreover, they could communicate with one another and work together in my class with unprecedented ease.

From my perspective, I could now flit about the room with relative ease, no longer having to squeeze between desks, or work my way to the end of the row to get from one side of the room to another. For the past two years, I’ve even left my vaunted position in the front of the room and began placing my “teachin’ table” in the center of the room, thus teaching “in the round.”

Admittedly, there are disadvantages to a room full of tables, but many of them can be easily overcome. What makes many other teachers most uncomfortable about the arrangement is that it facilitates communication among students. It’s much easier to communicate with someone next to you if you don’t have to turn around or lean uncomfortably outside your designated space. This can be a problem in an especially talkative classroom. This problem can be easily solved with basic classroom management. Proximity, now made easier with better flow of motion, heads off unwelcome conversation. For a particularly talkative classroom, desk re-arrangement can head off persistent conversational clusters. Another problem is “security” from roving eyes during tests and quizzes. My solution to that problem is an empty three ring binder placed strategically in front of the writing area, or for more important assessment endeavors, sheets of slotted plywood crossed to make privacy carrels.

The tables created a unique and flowing atmosphere in my room that I’d never felt before. I loved the feng shui of the circles, the harmonious balance of the tables and my central spot at the heart of the classroom. I love the sight students engaged comfortably in learning. A long legged track star reads with his legs stretched and feet positioned comfortably on the table top. A group of three students making a poster clusters their seats together at the end of the table to admire their masterpiece after each having completed a corner of it.

But alas, pedagogical and ergonomic revolution has succumbed to reaction. My supervisor informed me that too many teachers were “uncomfortable” teaching with the tables, and that since I was only in my room for 5 of 8 instructional periods, the tables will be replaced, probably by unidesks, in the fall. I would challenge my colleagues, fat and bony assed alike, to sit in a uni-desk for 84 minutes, four periods a day, and perhaps they’d rethink their level of comfort.

In what other real life, or even learning situation for that matter, do we subject adults to uni-desks? Many people read and write in librarys, but do we see uni-desks there? Where do corporate executives, and increasingly teachers do their learning? In uni-desks? NO! In board rooms or conference rooms equipped with… you guessed it… tables.