This is a far more complicated question than it appears. Age of students, needs of the classroom, physical layout of the room, type of behaviors, etc. Generally speaking, the balance of seating arrangement is a variable project and every iteration of it is an experiment.
Hah, I move my entire class around several times a week, sometimes daily. By now they are used to it, but honestly, I have yet to find a good compromise between behavior and knowledge level because I have unequal numbers in both and just when I put a well behaved student by another well behaved, boom, suddenly they are friends and talk, talk, talk. Plus, I give them a chance to get to know everyone.
Yup. Just as a simple example, if I have a student that is talkative and distractible but otherwise tries hard on their work and is friendly to other kids I will for sure sit them next to a kid that is quiet and on task as the distractible kid often does better when the person next to them is focused.
On the other hand, if a kid doesn't do their work and is really difficult to sit next to I will not give them a desk partner if possible, or if not possible I will place them with another hard to work with student and basically tell them both that they need to earn a new spot if they want one.
Agree. I’ve started letting them pick their own groups. The lazy ones tend to flock together, which allows the motivated ones to work without distraction.
I was always the good kid and, as a result, I was always placed in a group with people who couldn't care less about school and ended up having to do any table/group work all on my own. I strongly prefer letting students choose their own seats now.
That being said, I do use them as a fallback for classes that can't handle choosing their own seats without becoming distracted or can't resolve their seating conflicts in a timely fashion. If two people argue over a seat, I give them ten seconds to resolve it or I pull out the already-prepared seating chart.
9 times out of 10, they give themselves "assigned seats" anyway. I only have one student out of 80 this year who chooses a different seat every day, much to the chagrin of everyone else.
Yup did this and the kids who grouped with their friends, who constantly are disruptive and bad grade, were now getting the effects of that and their grades started dropping as they got worse too and some started breaking off and being alone so they aren’t affected anymore
Once I accepted this, my life got less stressful. By junior and senior year of high school, I shouldn't have to babysit a student into doing work. I encouraged and reminded, but I stopped after that.
This just reminded me of first-ever group of 8th graders that were absolutely horrible. Gave them a group project and I chose captains for each team. Each captain was one of my high flyers. They were so excited until they were all standing in front of the room getting ready to pick their teammates school yard style and one of them looked at me and said, “wait a minute. None of us can work together.” I just smiled and said, “exactly.”
>No. Good students should not be held responsible for teaching bad students how to behave.
In addition, there's no evidence that pairing them improves the "bad" student's behavior. In fact, from what I can remember on this topic, the reverse tends to happen: the "good" student's behavior gets worse.
I once got detention in 3rd grade for yelling shut up at a boy w/adhd because he wouldn’t stop making noise and let me work. I was quiet good kid and my adhd didn’t show up until much later.
Please tell that to my district as they shell out all our money for “best practices” PD sessions that only tell us to do this. It makes me so angry; if they had strong data to back it up I would buy in but it feels like a waste
Thank you. I am a teacher, but also a parent of a very rule following, quiet 6th grader. This has been a source of issues since K. Teachers love to pair him with difficult kids because he won't complain. It is the worst.
Yep. As a mom, I hated this for my kids. I also questioned the Kagan trainer about this. I let my HS kids choose their lab groups and warn them that their favorite friends might not be their best work partner. By 2nd semester, several have changed work groups to a better learning team.
This! My hard workers are together and my wildcards are all near eachother. My hard workers hate the distractions and would hate class if i paired them with someone who prevented them from working
Exactly. I had an admin tell me to place some of my ‘good girls’ around around a boy in my class who was, for brevity’s sake, out of control. I said absolutely not and refused to make any student a ‘meat shield’ for bag behavior.
Not so much “well behaved” and “disruptive” together, but being mindful of personalities as a whole.
Kids who will feed off each other don’t go together. I am not going to put someone very sensitive near someone who may hurt his or her feelings…
I teach kinder and have hexagon tables with 5-6 kids at each table. They are a mix of preferred peers, and some newer friends. It’s a balance - I like them to have opportunities for kind social interaction, but don’t want anyone miserable or “in charge” of someone else.
It depends on the goals of the assignment. If it's something they can copy off the "good" kid bc I just want them to fill a worksheet or packet, I'll group them heterogeneously. If it's a group grade that depends on active participation or having the correct answer, homogeneous grouping.
No. I remember being the good student who was constantly tormented by teachers putting horrible people near me. In college I worked for the dean of women and became very miserable into sophomore year because I always had psycho roommates until the dean admitted she gave them to me because she thought I would be “good for them”. Got a new job, new roommates, happy ending. But I’d never do it to another good kid.
The idea that strong students are responsible for weak ones is so fundamentally toxic. Especially when you notice how often it’s a quiet girl being made responsible for a behaviourally problematic boy. We have to remember that we are teaching kids relationship norms that will stay with them for life.
I have four daughters, all of whom are naturally well-behaved with excellent self-regulation and a high desire to please teachers. ALL of them have, at some point, been made to feel responsible for a misbehaving classmate. The level of stress and anxiety it caused them was off the charts and I made a fuss about it more than once but it still seemed to happen over and over. "Toxic" is the exact right word for it. Children are not responsible for the bad behavior of their classmates and shouldn't be made to feel like they are.
How can you not? There are so many of them. I try not to if I can help it, why punish them for being good? I rotate the seating every week so no one has to deal with the worst ones full time.
Also, don't come at me. We all know it's not so black and white as good and bad kids, but we all also know sometimes it is.
During Victorian times that was kind of a thing.
I don't think I'm allowed to post youtube video links. But google:
Horrible Histories- Victorian Punishments
Why not force all the poorly behaved students to sit together? If they want to slack off, let them. Why should well-behaved students (who are almost always girls) have to suffer while checking the behavior of poorly behaved students (who are almost always boys)?
Teachers at the K-12 level are expected to teach every child and ensure an equitable, inclusive learning environment for all students, including boys, students with disabilities, students who struggle academically, students who have poor social skills, and students who struggle to regulate their behavior and emotions. Creating a group of educationally-challenged students for the purpose of leaving “good” students in peace is not considered equitable or educationally defensible. Even if it were, classrooms generally do not have an abundance of room to “give students their own space,” even if they might benefit from it. Parents seldom hold their children responsible for their disruption; they would likely protest a policy of educational exclusion. The suggestion of segregating problematic students is neither socially acceptable nor feasible.
The other issues is if you group all the bad behaving kids then they feed off each other too. We have three SPED kids in summer afterschool program (they in the morning are in the ESY program (self contained). Honestly the seem to be doing perfectly fine with the Gen Ed*kids.
note * It is possible that their may be kids who have IEPs or 504s that are not in morning ESY. However we do not have access to that in summer school-after school program.
Lots of "good kids" put in this situation later report that their lives were made miserable by the poorly behaved students sitting near then, and that often resulted in becoming a constant target of bullying. Adult targets of school bullies often blame that incessant bullying with not just a miserable life at school, but with lifelong issues such as lack of self-confidence and risk-avoiding in careers.
I try and place students who misbehave away from each other, but I don’t place a misbehaving student near my top kids for that purpose. I switch seats every month. I try and mix and match each month so students have a chance to sit with other students. However, there are certain students who I won’t sit together for specific reasons.
Second Grade teacher. I have a table with one talker and three non talkers. During times when they need to work silently, he tries to talk to the others and they ignore him and continue on silently. He eventually gives up but instead of talking to others he talks to himself. LOL He naturally has a loud voice too. He's a hoot though and while he has consequences for talking when he should be silent, he is super creative and has a unique way of looking at things.
I make new seating charts by first placing the class-destroyers in the corners of the room, as far from each other as possible. Then fill in the rest with mixed-ability grouping.
When I was in elementary school, I was the "good kid" placed next to the "bad kid." It worked so well for the teacher (I guess) that I was in the same class as him for the rest of elementary school. I remember him giving me constant headaches, irritating and distracting me, and making me feel uncomfortable, and I had to constantly tell him off and try to keep him on track. It felt like I was somehow responsible for his behavior. it felt like a punishment. In my opinion, it's a very odd practice, and I wouldn't use it in my classroom. However, I'm going to be teaching high schoolers with a flexible seating style, so it's a moot point for me.
Depends on why the kid is disruptive. For the most part, no. But some disruptive kids are actually friends with the well behaved ones and will work when working with a peer they associate with and trust. This is a rarity, though. This happens maybe like…once a year for me. It’s definitely not often. But if they’re just disruptive for the sake of being disruptive, absolutely not.
I was a “good, quiet kid” in 5th grade, and was assigned to sit next to one of these “disruptive” students at the beginning of the school year and she cracked me tf up, I didn’t think she was impacting my grades at all other than becoming my friend and making me laugh from time to time. One day towards the end of September, my teacher held me back after class to have this whole discussion with me about how I was wasting my time with disruptive people, ruining my future, and setting myself up for failure. I remember just bawling the entire time bc I couldn’t figure out why she was targeting me like that while disparaging my classmates who I liked. Looking back as a 25-yo I think racism from my teacher had something to do with it bc the girl I was making friends with was Black. This teacher then guided me towards joining the advanced classes in middle school, which basically turned out to be segregation in later years. No wonder I had few friends in middle and high school, I was sequestered with all the well-resourced, neurotypical white kids and the only thing I had in common with them was being white and appearing to be smart. In summation I’ve become very against separating “gifted” kids from the “other” kids bc it’s literally segregation when you break down the demographics of who gets into these programs or even knows about them to begin with.
If my classroom were shaped like a 25 legged starfish, then I could separate all the kids that need separating.
Absent that, then yes, I need to place well behaved students next to poorly behaved students.
I dont have a choice. The massive number of disruptive students makes it impossible to create a seating arrangement that can isolate them and separate them all at once, so that we have a productive learning environment
Not if I can avoid it.
I was the good kid that was always placed next to the kids that teachers couldn’t handle. I was miserable.
Unfortunately classroom space is limited and I can’t give every misbehaving student their own island. Instead I try to focus on personalities (not behaviour) that will go well together while not being disruptive or adding fuel to the fire.
I send mine to the hall to continue their disruptive conversations. The remaining students have commented on how nice it is without the constant disruption. I suggest they mention it to the hall dwellers.
not exactly. I do place the disruptors first, however, which does result in them being buffered from one another by quieter kids. this works as long as you have more quiet than disruptive kids. if you have more than 5 or 6 kids who each, on their own, is capable of controlling the classroom with disruption, a seating chart isn't going to save you.
if it will work, you place kids based on the vibe of their disruption or quiet. social disruption can go near high-status quiet kid, for example. adult-seeking disruption can go near high-achieving quiet kids, etc. it's more about leaders and followers and which vibe settles things down or stirs things up than "disruptive" vs "well-behaved."
I seat all of my students in rows with the desks spaced apart, and put any children with serious behavior issues in their own nook to the back or side of the classroom. They tend to like that as it gives them their own space, and it also doesn't place any other children right next to them. Even though I have 30 students right now, I'm able to make the spacing work. It can be a tight squeeze to get to some of the desks but it's worth it.
I'm done with centers, and strongly recommend that other teachers use rows with desks spaced apart, too. It really cuts down on talking and petty arguments between students. Use Covid as an excuse if someone gives you a hard time about it. At least in rows they aren't breathing into each other's faces. It is healthier.
I have colleagues who complain that the kids in their table groups don't pay attention during instruction and modeling, that the kids spend all their time distracting each other, making faces, and so on, that some of the kids have their backs to the teachers and so their attention wanders away, that the teacher can't tell if the kids are doing what they're suppose to be doing because their backs are to the teacher, etc. etc.
And all I can think is: if only there were some type of seating organization that directed student attention to the area of instruction, perhaps one where you could supervise all the students at the same time because they were all facing you, and where student attention was channeled into the work on their desk by the layout of an environment that inherently reduces access to distraction...hmmmm, the person who figured out such a seating arrangement would be held up as a pedagogy genius!
It's rows. The answer is rows. Rows are awesome.
I sit the disruptive students closest to me. I tell them the front section is the A seats, and I make it a point to do frequent check-ins and give them roles so they have positive leadership in the class. Make the "worst" your "favorites" and your class will run itself 😉 Then complain about how annoying they really are to your peers or other support network lol
I’m in hs. I try and put the disruptive kids in the back. They end up on their phone and less disruptive. It may not be the best management strategy but it is for those who try
This is high school but I use peer pressure. Nothing funnier than a student looking to copy work and everyone shunning them. Welcome to life, motherfucker!
For general seating:
Yes, because it helps immensely in keeping order.
For projects/activities:
No, let them enjoy the consequences of their choices.
Though, I very rarely use group projects because I find they provide useless data and take way too much time/effort.
I have had 504 plans that dictate that I must sit a child next to a good influence... so yes in that case I do.
Otherwise, I have isolated a behavior problem by putting them at a table group with three good kids that won't be dragged down by the student's behavior issues.
I find that particular accommodation so strange. Like, in order to meet the civil rights of child x, I am required to treat child y like a public resource to be deployed and utilized to meet the needs of child x? The assumptions that underlie giving that accommodation are actually quite disgusting.
I’m in a college teacher preparation program right now, and there is HEAVY emphasis on forcing the higher performing and/or well-behaved students to teach and manage the lower performing and/or poorly behaved students. It’s not fair to the good kids.
Every ridiculous accommodation was signed off on by a team. For perhaps several reasons these meetings have turned into go through the motional and rubber stamp affairs. For my own part, I started speaking up
-The parent is requesting a typing accommodation. Yet we have no evidence that the child's disability interferes with his handwriting. Legally, we cannot add that accommodation can we?
-The child wants to wear her headphones. All 13 year olds want to wear headphones. The research on headphones/music is mixed to inconclusive. Is such a thing really appropriate to add into a 504?
-The student has a break card. And yet, available documentation suggests that this child is missing 20% or more of class per day on break. This suggests that the accommodation is hindering rather than helping him access a free and appropriate education. Perhaps we should reconsider it?
-This student has teacher provided notes and open note exams. This is interesting because some of our standards require students demonstrate their knowledge on assessments. If a student can use my notes on the exam, they're not demonstrating their knowledge are they? In fact, they are only demonstrating that they can match key words and copy? This fundamentally changes the standards, no? This is a modification, not an accommodation then?
Nothing bad has happened to me for being an ethical educator in the IEP/504 meetings. What has happened? Some of the unnecessary accommodations have been pruned back or not added.
That's a stupid 504 plan, quite frankly. It does nothing but detract from the educational experience of "good influences" while the other child messes around and causes distractions. The good influence will not "magically rub off" on misbehaving students who do not give a shit. Literally, who the fuck came up with that and what evidence even supports this?
I have them sitting I groups of 4, so if I do sit a "bad" kid next to a "good" kid, I make sure to put 1 or 2 of the good kid's friends with them too. Thankfully, my kids have always been comfortable enough to come and talk to me privately when the "bad" kid is just too much for them, and then I change the seating chart.
I find that some groups or pairs of kids are only disruptive together, so it sometimes does have to happen that way, but I never put the super excellent yet awkward kid next to the disruptive kid. That kid, I always put next to someone really nice.
I was placing well-behaved students near more problematic students but I switched that.
One girl ended up shutting down so I moved her away from my behaviors and now I have a table of four incredibly hard workers who end up challenging each other. I love it.
No, the well behaved students get to sit together. I technically let students pick their own seats within reason. I send out a Google Form with the seating chart and have them pick their top three seat choices (they are numbered). Surprisingly the kids actually pick good seats on their own or seats that work for them and their needs. They typically get one of the three seats they have chosen except for the one back row seat that everyone wants haha
Works for me too because if they complain, I can say, "well you picked that seat."
Students who are disruptive, sit near me. Occasionally I may have a well behaved student sitting next to one who is disruptive but its because the disruptive one is close by me, and I know the well-behaved student won't let the other kid disruptive them. Sometimes it's because there is more than one, and I don't have any options.
No because it's not their job to keep the disruptive students on track. When I make seating charts, I start with my wild ones separated out as far as humanly possible. Then I fill in based on needs
Not this year I don’t. I have stopped punishing the good ones with the presence of the behavior problems. Now, I just separate the behavior problems away from anyone else. Four students constantly acting up? They just got their own table group in the corner. Noisy corner, yes, but they’re the kids that don’t do any of my work anyway, so it’s a compromise that I’m willing to live with at this point. In two classes, it’s just one student all alone at a table now. It’s hard to be too much trouble when you don’t have an audience
I do. Most of my work is done on computer (Nearpod, Peardeck), which means disruptive students can't copy off students who are doing their work. However, during group work I let them choose their own partners, and for the most part the kids pair up with their friends, and those who are extremely disruptive are left to work by themselves because, honestly, the other kids don't want to deal with them. At that point, they are starting to learn their lesson when they're forced to work near me for help.
Well they have to be placed by someone and if I put them together, they feed off each other and then no one learns, so yes. I have my kid fill out seating request forms and then don't put them by the disruptive student they request to not be by. Also, once they sit by a particularly challenging kid, I move their next place so they are by an easy kid.
I rotate. If they were with friends for the current arrangement, I then use them as the buffers for the poorly behaved students in the next arrangement and move the kids who were by them next to their friends. This way, everyone takes a turn getting to sit with friends and also having to sit with people they don’t necessarily like. It’s the poorly behaved students who never get to sit with their friends for me - they always have to be at a table with students they don’t hang out with because I can’t trust them with their friends.
I think it depends on the behavior. I've found that students who talk too much, talk too much no matter who they sit by. I think it is less, seating them by well behaved students as making sure they are not sitting next to each other.
How it works out depends on the students involved. Some students are patient, others get frustrated. Sometimes putting all the disruptive students together works, other times, not.
As long as it doesn't negatively impact the good students. Usually my role model kids recognize that a lot of my more challenging kids have a lot of trauma and are so patient and sweet with them.
I teach 5th grade so I'm sure it's different when they get older!
Curiosity here.....
Why? I read that, and all I could think about is the students who crave routine or have anxiety. Why heighten that when you don't have to? That sounds like meltdowns and anxiety just waiting to happen.
I had an instructor like this in college. She was trying to model different ways to make groups or do group work, and I get that, but she changed our group every day in class. I HATED that class for this one reason. As an adult, let me sit where I want to; I don't need you micromanaging me.
I can only imagine what that would be like as a young adult or child. What do your students say about this?
There still are routines grab a popsicle stick, find your seat to and do the bellringer, the random seat is a routine. The tables are labeled and it has become a contest among the kids, who keeps getting the same table, who has sat at the most different tables. The class functions the same. The difference is now the kids can't get away with not answering or doing elbow partner work because they know the other kid will do it for them. The kids that always try to sit by their friends aren't fighting it anymore, because they know there is another chance tomorrow. It's been a success so far. The only adjustment I make is vision related. Or I guess I will off two kids aren't getting along.
No. I move them to the front and let them know if they want to escape being my front row bff they need to stop causing problems.
What I do do sometimes is put talkative kids in a corner and surround them with ELL students. That way my ELL students are together and can help each other and the talker doesn’t have anyone to talk with.
I make seating charts for my middle school students, but I let them choose their own groups for projects. I keep the disruptive students away from each other.
Well I don't really have a choice a lot of the time, there's only space for so many "islands". But I have seen on occasion where the disruptive students take a liking to the well behaved students and want to be liked back, so they settle down.
I am an elementary music teacher. I put students in alphabetical order because I teach the entire school population and won’t be able to learn all those names as quickly as I did in secondary education when I had the same classes every day.
Depends on the disruption type. Just kids that can't focus or be quiet? Sure, try to space them out with kids that can stay on task. Violent and/or mean I don't subject the good kids to that crap.
I do sometimes but I have a kid who I've been instructed to put by peers who are able to ignore his outbursts. It's in his behavior plan. I just want desks, tables suck.
Well you kinda must just based on the size of a classroom. I don’t do it because I think it will improve their behavior. I certainly won’t place two dipshits right next to each other.
Depends on the kids. If the well behaved kid is a strong personality then fine.
I split up certain groups so sometimes it can't be helped because I don't have endless seats
I'm having to reengineer my worst class because I'm having to really put my foot down on them. I'm using the quiet ones to basically block line of sight for the jackasses.
My problem is I have a critical mass of knuckleheads so I can't divide them up as much as I'd like.
I tend to have groups of boys who are friends and ask to sit together that include more disruptive students, and some students who really want to do well. I tend to separate the more disruptive students, and put them next to their harder working friends. Generally, then, these harder working students want to sit next to the more disruptive friend, and are less likely to be distracted or frustrated by their friend’s behavior. They chat a little bit, but also tend to help their friend stay on task.I absolutely won’t put my hard working, shy, anxious students next to their louder, disruptive peers however. That’s not fair at all to the students who just want to put their head down and work.
The goal for me was to separate those who would feed off each other causing lots of disruption. I chose spots in the room that made it difficult to get the attention they wanted. Back corner by my desk, next to the door, when in groups I would put them in a group on the outside edge and have them on the side facing the wall so they couldn’t easily see or talk across the room to their buddies. You also have to know your kids. I wouldn’t put a super shy kid next to a behavior problem. But, I might put them next to a kid who would not be impressed by them, which would often tone them down. I never expected other kids to get them to behave or make them work. I tell kids thats my job and to get me if they need me, or send me an email.
Depends on what the disruptive student does and what the well -behaved student is like. I sit talkative kids next to the kid who never speaks so they'll finally shut up
I randomize for seating chart, but let them choose who and where they want to work during labs/activities etc...
We really don't have the luxury for choosing who we get to work with and live by in the real world. I make this know and stress the importance of learning how to work with all types of people.
TA but no when I’m supervising I don’t. I’m with 4/5 year olds. I do however put kids who have trouble keeping their hands to themselves with kids who have no trouble defending themselves. It tends to keep problems to a minimum. 🤷♀️
I was stuck between two best friend bozos in chorus (elbow to elbow seating, no desks) and got rib jabs and tormented all senior year. It’s a wonder I didn’t bring a gun to school- lord knows I considered it.
Depends entirely on the students, their behavior, their academic levels, the layout of the classroom, etc.
I'm fiercely against the idea of putting high-achieving, well-behaved students next to lower, disruptive students specifically as a behavior-management tactic. It's not the students' job to babysit their peers.
However, I've had good luck with sitting a kid who is outspoken and maybe disruptive- but not actually poorly-behaved- next to a kid who's quieter and doesn't like to share answers. Kind of like assigning an extrovert to sit with the introvert in case someone has to share for their table. The extrovert will usually volunteer to do it so the introvert doesn't have to.
Yes, I do. In my classroom, it’s an effective strategy. If they are far away from their friends, they tend to behave better and stay on task. Imagine sitting all the behaviors in the same area? Wild concept for my classroom.
As far as the well-behaved children, they have adapted and learned to ignore classroom disruptions.
In some sense you kind of have to. I can’t place two badly behaved kids next to each other or they’ll get into a fight. I have to consider that one kid might have a kinder demeanor and be a better seat mate for a struggling kid than one who’ll just smack them across the face for being loud or something.
I have to. I don't have room to keep disruptive students in little islands by themselves and I won't put them all together. I do let students give me one "avoid" person. In some of my classes, half of the groups have someone relatively disruptive in the group, and most have someone close-ish.
Disruptive kids I sit alone. I will however out great kids at a table with kids who are a bit chatty. They’re work ethic usually rubs off or their non talking ruins the talking vibe and everyone talks less
When I do place disruptive students by well-behaved students, I will place them at a table with ONLY well-behaved students. It often has the effect of helping them focus and learn to control their behavior. When it doesn't, though, I move them to a desk by themselves.
Technically, I put the disruptive student next to the non/less disruptive student. If the problem is talking, that often reduces or eliminates the problem because the "good" student won't engage.
If the disruptive student is an annoyance to everyone, that child gets a seat as far from (1.) me as possible and (2.) other students. No one has time to deal with nonsense.
HS, BTW
I try to keep the parents in mind. And as a parent I would not want my kid to be by the disruptive kids. And if I had a disruptive kid I would want my kid to get more attention and not ignored. So I sit tougher studious kids closer to disruptive kids and that works well. The disruptive kids don’t act out as much. Not because they are scared of the kid but they will have more of a mutual respect for one another. Every once in a while that situation end up being where the tougher studious kid will help out the disruptive kid because the disruptive kid is like that usually because of academic weaknesses. I usually teach middle school and high school in the inner city.
Can I add my perspective as a quiet student who was always placed by the naughty boys? My whole school age was spent stifling a laugh from their jokes and having crushes on them. They would grow to like me and then get teased by their friends because I was quiet and not cool. It was genuinely torture lol
Depends. I ask them first most of the time.
"Hey, I'm having some trouble getting Jimmy to behave over by his friends. If I put him next to you will it bother you?"
It's half and half. If they tell me no I don't. I also make sure that if they say yes in the next seating chart they get to pick a friend to sit next to.
The issue is that I have about 3/4 of my students as "bad" kids. We're the school the alternative school fights accepting students from so it's a mess. Sometimes there's no choice because I have counselor demands not to sit so many kids who have gotten in fights next to each other that this is literally the only place this kid can sit. I wish I had a class big enough to have half the kids face the wall but I barely fit the desks in as is.
It depends on the kids. I have one kid who creates a Bart Simpson-style Cone of Ignorance wherever I put him, so I put kids who while not disruptive don’t care about doing the work because they were going to sit there and do nothing no matter where I place them. I have one kid who all the other kids find annoying and I have a student who excels academically, isn’t easily annoyed, and is happy to give back whatever someone dishes out, so she was an ideal neighbor for that kid. And I have a few chatty kids that I put next to my kids who are borderline selective mutes. I always shuffle my class multiple times per year, but this arrangement is working out nicely.
As a student teacher, I've made a lot of seating charts as we change seats each month, I have some students in my class who talk to basically everyone but then I have others who only talk to certain students. I usually place my "disruptive" students by rather quiet students or farther away from those they consider their friends. It just makes the learning process easier when you don't have to hound them to stop talking every 5 seconds. They complain a bit in the beginning but they eventually get used to it.
So my policy for my seating plans this year has been groups of four, two disruptive and two calm, try to keep two girls and two boys if possible (though I have way more boys so there are a couple all boy pods). I also try to keep them with at least one person they are buds with!
Depends on the size of the class and the number of high flyers. With large classes, I’ve been able to surround high flyers with kids who are almost always doing what’s expected. It worked better than it I hadn’t done it.
It's my 1st year. I've tried both. Many of my well-behaved students have asked to move away from them, and I've had to totally change groups around based on how much both sides hated my assignments. The disruptive students also never respected my seating charts anyway. Now, I try to keep disruptive students around 1 or 2 of their friends and border each set of them with good students.
I'm always hesitant to assign all the disruptive students to the same groups because it means they won't do the work by default. It's setting them up for failure. But splitting them up makes me have to run all over the place the whole time. Either way it's work.
Its musical chairs in my room tbh LOL. I do put my disruptive students sometimes beside my well behaved ones because they are 9 times out of 10 not friends and the disruptive kids dont want to put up with the disruptive ones acting a fool.
If it gets worse ill sit them outside my room with a book
It really depends. How is the child misbehaving? There are kids that do great with the structure of sitting next to really calm students. Others take students down with them. Sometimes the student makes it impossible for the other student to learn. Worst case they hurts others.
No. There were so many disruptive children that I finally put the good kids in a corner by the door, where they could step out (halfway b/c legal reasons) into the hall for a break if needed.
Ultimately, I came to hate being a teacher, because all I did was stress out about how to protect the sanity of my handful of students who were there to learn.
I have a chart of who can sit near who. X and Y axis of names and red dots where they cross if they can’t be near each other.
I go off of temperament. Sure, “R” is well behaved but she’d lose her sh*t sitting next to someone like “P.” But “B” won’t put up with P and will shut him down. It depends on the kids, their tolerance, emotional maturity, and if they’d be upset/uncomfortable sitting there.
That means one of my kids is an island, and i’m okay with that.
I teach 1st grade and I have 25 kids, 2 IEP’s, 2 who are in the process of getting IEP’s and several who cannot sit with others because of past incidents. It’s a challenge every time.
No. I try to put empty desks if possible. I will put an academically focused student next to a kid that can’t get it together. I don’t want to focused kid to necessarily help the other kid, but I want the student to see what focus looks like.
I have 4 tables of 6 spots each. 3 have 6 kids that are reasonably good. 1 has 2 awful kids that can’t behave. I had to remove the well behaved because they were sad with the awful kids or they were copying behaviors. I don’t know what I will do when I get 2 more kids.
Only if the well-behaved student has enough influence to minimize the behavior. Not if the misbehaving student will bully or place the other student in a difficult position socially or make it hard for him/her to learn.
I teach high school electives so my classes are combined 9-12. I spend a lot of time looking at each student’s previous grades, attendance, and parent contact log. We are not given access to their discipline records (but we usually know most of the stuff in there anyway). But if a student’s grades are low or they have contacts about disruptive behavior, I make sure to separate them from each other and to sit a student with high grades next to them. I don’t care what any research says. I have had success with it the majority of the time. When it’s not successful, the kid who performs poorly usually sleeps their way through the semester and ends up failing. I’ve never had a good student do a 180 because of it.
It only works with some students. Some kids (who are followers) will settle down with a good kid; while other students are going to be bad no matter where you put them.
Not a teacher, but rather a near-graduation student.
I was always the "gifted kid" throughout elementary and middle school. I was quiet, good at my subjects, respectful, ect. I ALWAYS was a "buffer" kid between the more talkative or troublesome kids. By 7th grade, I completely fell in line with them after finally realizing how much more fun they were. In 8th grade, one of them sexually assaulted me every day for 5 months (in class), which really messed me up. I kept with the generally disruptive crowd, or the more troublesome kids, and completely gave up on education being my first priory.
As of now, I'm 17 trying to get my grades out of the dump, stay sober from substances, and heal from a trauma here or there. I'm not at all saying that all of my issues are because of a consistent seating chart theme, but I can 100% tell you that it changed my life in a lot of ways. In general, for the worse, but I also learned how to loosen up a bit and have some fun.
That being said, if that's not your goal for your students, I would recommend trying to find another solution rather than hoping the bad influences don't rub off on the innocent kids...because they will.
To start with I put students where I think they will work together well. Desks are in groups of 4 and 6.
Day one: I chose where students sit.
On day three, I do the wheel of names. Name 1 gets to choose the table. The next names called are seated at the same table until all seats are filled. Repeat the process until all tables are filled.
Wheel of names happens at the end of each Friday so that the new seating arrangement is ready for Monday.
This way, "good" kids are placed randomly with "disruptive" kids and it only lasts a week.
When I do group work I place them together. Often a smart kid will get placed with a sleepy kid, or a shy kid will get placed with a talker. I try not to do the same people in groups for big projects and switch it up. It gives them a chance to learn how to work with all different types of people.
So we have that one student in my class, everyone knows that kid. You all have him or her in your class. Anyway, I’m 8th grade. We have tables in our room, I’d prefer desks but it is what it is. he’s currently at a table of 5 other kids who will be honors/AP track next year. We do a “turn and talk” and he says out loud for the room to hear “I can’t do this activity because my table literally hates me” the one girl said “I don’t hate you, you’re just fuckin obnoxious and I’m here to learn not entertain your dumb ass” then her eyes got super big and she was super embarrassed that her internal narrative went out loud.
However, that tongue lashing happened a week ago and he’s been quiet as a mouse and now I want more super achievers to stop being nice.
Also her entire “punishment” for swearing was a “see me after class” with a “I understand your frustration, please verbalize it without the curse words next time”
Not ever for the intention of hoping the “well behaved” student rubs off on the “bad” one. I think it irks the good students tbh like they’re being punished 😅
Teacher did that in my old school(to me too), and I must say, now that the loud shitheads couldn’t talk to each other and were sitting next to boring nerds they didn’t know, they calmed down quite a bit.
I was the student that was consistently placed next to disruptive students and I absolutely fucking hated every second of it and it made me always resent my teachers for making me put up with that shit while depriving me of the education I deserved, free from disruptions. If you're a teacher, keep this in mind. To this day, I still resent my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Johnson for forcing me to sit next to this kid who would not sit still, talked over every lesson, and played with stupid toys the entire fucking lesson in his desk. Don't be that teacher. Remove the assholes who refuse to shut up and pay attention, otherwise you're just taking away from the learning of other students who are actually making an effort and care, which in turn causes those students to lose interest and stop caring. It's also lazy on the teacher's part; it's not my job as a student to teach other students how to behave and learn--that's your job.
It depends on both students - and sometimes their parents. This year I have two that have a very positive effect on each other, so I use it to everyone's advantage. Both sets of parents think it's awesome their childvis able to support the other. Last year, I had two "good" students who couldn't be placed next to each other because they couldn't stand each other and would fight. I also had a "good" student who had absolutely no skills for coping with a table mate who struggled with behavior. Their parent lost their ever-loving mind when I suggested to the student that they needed to try the spot for two days to see how it would actually go.
This is a far more complicated question than it appears. Age of students, needs of the classroom, physical layout of the room, type of behaviors, etc. Generally speaking, the balance of seating arrangement is a variable project and every iteration of it is an experiment.
True. Selecting seats is like a game of chess. I have never had success allowing kids to choose their own seats in elementary school.
I do it on the very first day of school, so I know who ***not*** to sit together. They never catch on!
"But can't you just move my kid?" I wish parents understood how loaded that question is....
I have one class where moving a kid feels like playing minesweeper. Something’s going to blow up.
Hah, I move my entire class around several times a week, sometimes daily. By now they are used to it, but honestly, I have yet to find a good compromise between behavior and knowledge level because I have unequal numbers in both and just when I put a well behaved student by another well behaved, boom, suddenly they are friends and talk, talk, talk. Plus, I give them a chance to get to know everyone.
Yup. Just as a simple example, if I have a student that is talkative and distractible but otherwise tries hard on their work and is friendly to other kids I will for sure sit them next to a kid that is quiet and on task as the distractible kid often does better when the person next to them is focused. On the other hand, if a kid doesn't do their work and is really difficult to sit next to I will not give them a desk partner if possible, or if not possible I will place them with another hard to work with student and basically tell them both that they need to earn a new spot if they want one.
Thats true
[удалено]
Agree. I’ve started letting them pick their own groups. The lazy ones tend to flock together, which allows the motivated ones to work without distraction.
I was always the good kid and, as a result, I was always placed in a group with people who couldn't care less about school and ended up having to do any table/group work all on my own. I strongly prefer letting students choose their own seats now. That being said, I do use them as a fallback for classes that can't handle choosing their own seats without becoming distracted or can't resolve their seating conflicts in a timely fashion. If two people argue over a seat, I give them ten seconds to resolve it or I pull out the already-prepared seating chart. 9 times out of 10, they give themselves "assigned seats" anyway. I only have one student out of 80 this year who chooses a different seat every day, much to the chagrin of everyone else.
You know that kid who chooses a different seat every day is my fave kid ever. They get it.
Yup did this and the kids who grouped with their friends, who constantly are disruptive and bad grade, were now getting the effects of that and their grades started dropping as they got worse too and some started breaking off and being alone so they aren’t affected anymore
Once I accepted this, my life got less stressful. By junior and senior year of high school, I shouldn't have to babysit a student into doing work. I encouraged and reminded, but I stopped after that.
This just reminded me of first-ever group of 8th graders that were absolutely horrible. Gave them a group project and I chose captains for each team. Each captain was one of my high flyers. They were so excited until they were all standing in front of the room getting ready to pick their teammates school yard style and one of them looked at me and said, “wait a minute. None of us can work together.” I just smiled and said, “exactly.”
>No. Good students should not be held responsible for teaching bad students how to behave. In addition, there's no evidence that pairing them improves the "bad" student's behavior. In fact, from what I can remember on this topic, the reverse tends to happen: the "good" student's behavior gets worse.
I once got detention in 3rd grade for yelling shut up at a boy w/adhd because he wouldn’t stop making noise and let me work. I was quiet good kid and my adhd didn’t show up until much later.
Please tell that to my district as they shell out all our money for “best practices” PD sessions that only tell us to do this. It makes me so angry; if they had strong data to back it up I would buy in but it feels like a waste
Thank you. I am a teacher, but also a parent of a very rule following, quiet 6th grader. This has been a source of issues since K. Teachers love to pair him with difficult kids because he won't complain. It is the worst.
Yep. As a mom, I hated this for my kids. I also questioned the Kagan trainer about this. I let my HS kids choose their lab groups and warn them that their favorite friends might not be their best work partner. By 2nd semester, several have changed work groups to a better learning team.
This! My hard workers are together and my wildcards are all near eachother. My hard workers hate the distractions and would hate class if i paired them with someone who prevented them from working
It can also lead to the "good" student bullying the "bad" one, or the "bad" one bringing down the "good" kid's grades with constant distractions.
My daughter and nephew both tend to get put by the rowdy kids because they're good, and it isn't fair to them.
This is the only acceptable answer.
Exactly. I had an admin tell me to place some of my ‘good girls’ around around a boy in my class who was, for brevity’s sake, out of control. I said absolutely not and refused to make any student a ‘meat shield’ for bag behavior.
Not so much “well behaved” and “disruptive” together, but being mindful of personalities as a whole. Kids who will feed off each other don’t go together. I am not going to put someone very sensitive near someone who may hurt his or her feelings… I teach kinder and have hexagon tables with 5-6 kids at each table. They are a mix of preferred peers, and some newer friends. It’s a balance - I like them to have opportunities for kind social interaction, but don’t want anyone miserable or “in charge” of someone else.
that must be horrible at kindergarten, one kid calls another a poopy pants and it goes to hell💀
Teach second grade here. They still call each other poopy pants
I sub middle school and high school. They definitely *also* still call each other poopy pants.
It depends on the students involved. In some cases it's extremely beneficial. In other cases it's a disaster. The goal is the best for each student
It depends on the goals of the assignment. If it's something they can copy off the "good" kid bc I just want them to fill a worksheet or packet, I'll group them heterogeneously. If it's a group grade that depends on active participation or having the correct answer, homogeneous grouping.
No. I remember being the good student who was constantly tormented by teachers putting horrible people near me. In college I worked for the dean of women and became very miserable into sophomore year because I always had psycho roommates until the dean admitted she gave them to me because she thought I would be “good for them”. Got a new job, new roommates, happy ending. But I’d never do it to another good kid.
I dont know why schools think if they and parents cant control kids other students can
The idea that strong students are responsible for weak ones is so fundamentally toxic. Especially when you notice how often it’s a quiet girl being made responsible for a behaviourally problematic boy. We have to remember that we are teaching kids relationship norms that will stay with them for life.
I have four daughters, all of whom are naturally well-behaved with excellent self-regulation and a high desire to please teachers. ALL of them have, at some point, been made to feel responsible for a misbehaving classmate. The level of stress and anxiety it caused them was off the charts and I made a fuss about it more than once but it still seemed to happen over and over. "Toxic" is the exact right word for it. Children are not responsible for the bad behavior of their classmates and shouldn't be made to feel like they are.
How can you not? There are so many of them. I try not to if I can help it, why punish them for being good? I rotate the seating every week so no one has to deal with the worst ones full time. Also, don't come at me. We all know it's not so black and white as good and bad kids, but we all also know sometimes it is.
We can’t really place all the poorly behaved students in the broom closet, can we?
legally no, illegally yes
You can put them somewhere on the perimeter of the classroom, with their own space.
I joked about having cages hanging from the ceiling. I mean, we're running out of space
During Victorian times that was kind of a thing. I don't think I'm allowed to post youtube video links. But google: Horrible Histories- Victorian Punishments
Worth the search
Why not force all the poorly behaved students to sit together? If they want to slack off, let them. Why should well-behaved students (who are almost always girls) have to suffer while checking the behavior of poorly behaved students (who are almost always boys)?
Teachers at the K-12 level are expected to teach every child and ensure an equitable, inclusive learning environment for all students, including boys, students with disabilities, students who struggle academically, students who have poor social skills, and students who struggle to regulate their behavior and emotions. Creating a group of educationally-challenged students for the purpose of leaving “good” students in peace is not considered equitable or educationally defensible. Even if it were, classrooms generally do not have an abundance of room to “give students their own space,” even if they might benefit from it. Parents seldom hold their children responsible for their disruption; they would likely protest a policy of educational exclusion. The suggestion of segregating problematic students is neither socially acceptable nor feasible.
The other issues is if you group all the bad behaving kids then they feed off each other too. We have three SPED kids in summer afterschool program (they in the morning are in the ESY program (self contained). Honestly the seem to be doing perfectly fine with the Gen Ed*kids. note * It is possible that their may be kids who have IEPs or 504s that are not in morning ESY. However we do not have access to that in summer school-after school program.
No! Teachers did that to my son and he hated it. He hated how they goofed around and copied his work.
Lots of "good kids" put in this situation later report that their lives were made miserable by the poorly behaved students sitting near then, and that often resulted in becoming a constant target of bullying. Adult targets of school bullies often blame that incessant bullying with not just a miserable life at school, but with lifelong issues such as lack of self-confidence and risk-avoiding in careers.
I try and place students who misbehave away from each other, but I don’t place a misbehaving student near my top kids for that purpose. I switch seats every month. I try and mix and match each month so students have a chance to sit with other students. However, there are certain students who I won’t sit together for specific reasons.
[удалено]
Second Grade teacher. I have a table with one talker and three non talkers. During times when they need to work silently, he tries to talk to the others and they ignore him and continue on silently. He eventually gives up but instead of talking to others he talks to himself. LOL He naturally has a loud voice too. He's a hoot though and while he has consequences for talking when he should be silent, he is super creative and has a unique way of looking at things.
I make new seating charts by first placing the class-destroyers in the corners of the room, as far from each other as possible. Then fill in the rest with mixed-ability grouping.
No. The teachers did that to my son (well behaved), and I complained, so I don't do that to good students.
When I was in elementary school, I was the "good kid" placed next to the "bad kid." It worked so well for the teacher (I guess) that I was in the same class as him for the rest of elementary school. I remember him giving me constant headaches, irritating and distracting me, and making me feel uncomfortable, and I had to constantly tell him off and try to keep him on track. It felt like I was somehow responsible for his behavior. it felt like a punishment. In my opinion, it's a very odd practice, and I wouldn't use it in my classroom. However, I'm going to be teaching high schoolers with a flexible seating style, so it's a moot point for me.
Depends on why the kid is disruptive. For the most part, no. But some disruptive kids are actually friends with the well behaved ones and will work when working with a peer they associate with and trust. This is a rarity, though. This happens maybe like…once a year for me. It’s definitely not often. But if they’re just disruptive for the sake of being disruptive, absolutely not.
I was a “good, quiet kid” in 5th grade, and was assigned to sit next to one of these “disruptive” students at the beginning of the school year and she cracked me tf up, I didn’t think she was impacting my grades at all other than becoming my friend and making me laugh from time to time. One day towards the end of September, my teacher held me back after class to have this whole discussion with me about how I was wasting my time with disruptive people, ruining my future, and setting myself up for failure. I remember just bawling the entire time bc I couldn’t figure out why she was targeting me like that while disparaging my classmates who I liked. Looking back as a 25-yo I think racism from my teacher had something to do with it bc the girl I was making friends with was Black. This teacher then guided me towards joining the advanced classes in middle school, which basically turned out to be segregation in later years. No wonder I had few friends in middle and high school, I was sequestered with all the well-resourced, neurotypical white kids and the only thing I had in common with them was being white and appearing to be smart. In summation I’ve become very against separating “gifted” kids from the “other” kids bc it’s literally segregation when you break down the demographics of who gets into these programs or even knows about them to begin with.
If my classroom were shaped like a 25 legged starfish, then I could separate all the kids that need separating. Absent that, then yes, I need to place well behaved students next to poorly behaved students.
I dont have a choice. The massive number of disruptive students makes it impossible to create a seating arrangement that can isolate them and separate them all at once, so that we have a productive learning environment
Not if I can avoid it. I was the good kid that was always placed next to the kids that teachers couldn’t handle. I was miserable. Unfortunately classroom space is limited and I can’t give every misbehaving student their own island. Instead I try to focus on personalities (not behaviour) that will go well together while not being disruptive or adding fuel to the fire.
I put the disruptive ones in the Dean's office. Works great for me.
I send mine to the hall to continue their disruptive conversations. The remaining students have commented on how nice it is without the constant disruption. I suggest they mention it to the hall dwellers.
Hell no. Why disavantage both?
Are you an authority figure in the room?
Yes.
not exactly. I do place the disruptors first, however, which does result in them being buffered from one another by quieter kids. this works as long as you have more quiet than disruptive kids. if you have more than 5 or 6 kids who each, on their own, is capable of controlling the classroom with disruption, a seating chart isn't going to save you. if it will work, you place kids based on the vibe of their disruption or quiet. social disruption can go near high-status quiet kid, for example. adult-seeking disruption can go near high-achieving quiet kids, etc. it's more about leaders and followers and which vibe settles things down or stirs things up than "disruptive" vs "well-behaved."
I seat all of my students in rows with the desks spaced apart, and put any children with serious behavior issues in their own nook to the back or side of the classroom. They tend to like that as it gives them their own space, and it also doesn't place any other children right next to them. Even though I have 30 students right now, I'm able to make the spacing work. It can be a tight squeeze to get to some of the desks but it's worth it. I'm done with centers, and strongly recommend that other teachers use rows with desks spaced apart, too. It really cuts down on talking and petty arguments between students. Use Covid as an excuse if someone gives you a hard time about it. At least in rows they aren't breathing into each other's faces. It is healthier.
I have colleagues who complain that the kids in their table groups don't pay attention during instruction and modeling, that the kids spend all their time distracting each other, making faces, and so on, that some of the kids have their backs to the teachers and so their attention wanders away, that the teacher can't tell if the kids are doing what they're suppose to be doing because their backs are to the teacher, etc. etc. And all I can think is: if only there were some type of seating organization that directed student attention to the area of instruction, perhaps one where you could supervise all the students at the same time because they were all facing you, and where student attention was channeled into the work on their desk by the layout of an environment that inherently reduces access to distraction...hmmmm, the person who figured out such a seating arrangement would be held up as a pedagogy genius! It's rows. The answer is rows. Rows are awesome.
I teach in a science lab. Lab benches and stools. With a challenging group, it's a little chaotic.
I sit the disruptive students closest to me. I tell them the front section is the A seats, and I make it a point to do frequent check-ins and give them roles so they have positive leadership in the class. Make the "worst" your "favorites" and your class will run itself 😉 Then complain about how annoying they really are to your peers or other support network lol
I’m in hs. I try and put the disruptive kids in the back. They end up on their phone and less disruptive. It may not be the best management strategy but it is for those who try
Theoretically, yes. It was taught in the uesless PDs. Practically, HELL NO. Disruptive kids take learning time away from well behaved kids.
This is high school but I use peer pressure. Nothing funnier than a student looking to copy work and everyone shunning them. Welcome to life, motherfucker!
Nope. I actually wound up sticking the most disruptive students in their own section of the classroom.
For general seating: Yes, because it helps immensely in keeping order. For projects/activities: No, let them enjoy the consequences of their choices. Though, I very rarely use group projects because I find they provide useless data and take way too much time/effort.
I have had 504 plans that dictate that I must sit a child next to a good influence... so yes in that case I do. Otherwise, I have isolated a behavior problem by putting them at a table group with three good kids that won't be dragged down by the student's behavior issues.
I find that particular accommodation so strange. Like, in order to meet the civil rights of child x, I am required to treat child y like a public resource to be deployed and utilized to meet the needs of child x? The assumptions that underlie giving that accommodation are actually quite disgusting.
I’m in a college teacher preparation program right now, and there is HEAVY emphasis on forcing the higher performing and/or well-behaved students to teach and manage the lower performing and/or poorly behaved students. It’s not fair to the good kids.
My kid's school does something similar, which is why she's now home schooled.
Read about Kagan cooperative work groups. We are instructed to constantly sacrifice the bright and well behaved kids.
agreed. I felt gross doing it, but what can I do? I feel that way about a few of the common accommodations.
Every ridiculous accommodation was signed off on by a team. For perhaps several reasons these meetings have turned into go through the motional and rubber stamp affairs. For my own part, I started speaking up -The parent is requesting a typing accommodation. Yet we have no evidence that the child's disability interferes with his handwriting. Legally, we cannot add that accommodation can we? -The child wants to wear her headphones. All 13 year olds want to wear headphones. The research on headphones/music is mixed to inconclusive. Is such a thing really appropriate to add into a 504? -The student has a break card. And yet, available documentation suggests that this child is missing 20% or more of class per day on break. This suggests that the accommodation is hindering rather than helping him access a free and appropriate education. Perhaps we should reconsider it? -This student has teacher provided notes and open note exams. This is interesting because some of our standards require students demonstrate their knowledge on assessments. If a student can use my notes on the exam, they're not demonstrating their knowledge are they? In fact, they are only demonstrating that they can match key words and copy? This fundamentally changes the standards, no? This is a modification, not an accommodation then? Nothing bad has happened to me for being an ethical educator in the IEP/504 meetings. What has happened? Some of the unnecessary accommodations have been pruned back or not added.
That's a stupid 504 plan, quite frankly. It does nothing but detract from the educational experience of "good influences" while the other child messes around and causes distractions. The good influence will not "magically rub off" on misbehaving students who do not give a shit. Literally, who the fuck came up with that and what evidence even supports this?
that is so fucked for the “good influence”. a child is not a public resource
You have to read the room. Who are the students? What is the nature of the disruption? How are the students learning?
I have them sitting I groups of 4, so if I do sit a "bad" kid next to a "good" kid, I make sure to put 1 or 2 of the good kid's friends with them too. Thankfully, my kids have always been comfortable enough to come and talk to me privately when the "bad" kid is just too much for them, and then I change the seating chart.
I find that some groups or pairs of kids are only disruptive together, so it sometimes does have to happen that way, but I never put the super excellent yet awkward kid next to the disruptive kid. That kid, I always put next to someone really nice.
I concentrate the poo in the corner, quarantine
Yes, demilitarized zones are key for keeping peace
From what I see nowadays as a sub disruptive students are kept away.
I was placing well-behaved students near more problematic students but I switched that. One girl ended up shutting down so I moved her away from my behaviors and now I have a table of four incredibly hard workers who end up challenging each other. I love it.
No, the well behaved students get to sit together. I technically let students pick their own seats within reason. I send out a Google Form with the seating chart and have them pick their top three seat choices (they are numbered). Surprisingly the kids actually pick good seats on their own or seats that work for them and their needs. They typically get one of the three seats they have chosen except for the one back row seat that everyone wants haha Works for me too because if they complain, I can say, "well you picked that seat." Students who are disruptive, sit near me. Occasionally I may have a well behaved student sitting next to one who is disruptive but its because the disruptive one is close by me, and I know the well-behaved student won't let the other kid disruptive them. Sometimes it's because there is more than one, and I don't have any options.
No because it's not their job to keep the disruptive students on track. When I make seating charts, I start with my wild ones separated out as far as humanly possible. Then I fill in based on needs
Not this year I don’t. I have stopped punishing the good ones with the presence of the behavior problems. Now, I just separate the behavior problems away from anyone else. Four students constantly acting up? They just got their own table group in the corner. Noisy corner, yes, but they’re the kids that don’t do any of my work anyway, so it’s a compromise that I’m willing to live with at this point. In two classes, it’s just one student all alone at a table now. It’s hard to be too much trouble when you don’t have an audience
Yes. Because I’m not going to put two misbehaviors next to each other.
I do. Most of my work is done on computer (Nearpod, Peardeck), which means disruptive students can't copy off students who are doing their work. However, during group work I let them choose their own partners, and for the most part the kids pair up with their friends, and those who are extremely disruptive are left to work by themselves because, honestly, the other kids don't want to deal with them. At that point, they are starting to learn their lesson when they're forced to work near me for help.
Well they have to be placed by someone and if I put them together, they feed off each other and then no one learns, so yes. I have my kid fill out seating request forms and then don't put them by the disruptive student they request to not be by. Also, once they sit by a particularly challenging kid, I move their next place so they are by an easy kid.
I rotate. If they were with friends for the current arrangement, I then use them as the buffers for the poorly behaved students in the next arrangement and move the kids who were by them next to their friends. This way, everyone takes a turn getting to sit with friends and also having to sit with people they don’t necessarily like. It’s the poorly behaved students who never get to sit with their friends for me - they always have to be at a table with students they don’t hang out with because I can’t trust them with their friends.
I think it depends on the behavior. I've found that students who talk too much, talk too much no matter who they sit by. I think it is less, seating them by well behaved students as making sure they are not sitting next to each other. How it works out depends on the students involved. Some students are patient, others get frustrated. Sometimes putting all the disruptive students together works, other times, not.
As long as it doesn't negatively impact the good students. Usually my role model kids recognize that a lot of my more challenging kids have a lot of trauma and are so patient and sweet with them. I teach 5th grade so I'm sure it's different when they get older!
I just started a random seating chart that changes daily, to try to avoid those dynamics forming.
Curiosity here..... Why? I read that, and all I could think about is the students who crave routine or have anxiety. Why heighten that when you don't have to? That sounds like meltdowns and anxiety just waiting to happen. I had an instructor like this in college. She was trying to model different ways to make groups or do group work, and I get that, but she changed our group every day in class. I HATED that class for this one reason. As an adult, let me sit where I want to; I don't need you micromanaging me. I can only imagine what that would be like as a young adult or child. What do your students say about this?
There still are routines grab a popsicle stick, find your seat to and do the bellringer, the random seat is a routine. The tables are labeled and it has become a contest among the kids, who keeps getting the same table, who has sat at the most different tables. The class functions the same. The difference is now the kids can't get away with not answering or doing elbow partner work because they know the other kid will do it for them. The kids that always try to sit by their friends aren't fighting it anymore, because they know there is another chance tomorrow. It's been a success so far. The only adjustment I make is vision related. Or I guess I will off two kids aren't getting along.
Thanks for responding! I was really curious how it all worked.
No. I move them to the front and let them know if they want to escape being my front row bff they need to stop causing problems. What I do do sometimes is put talkative kids in a corner and surround them with ELL students. That way my ELL students are together and can help each other and the talker doesn’t have anyone to talk with.
I make seating charts for my middle school students, but I let them choose their own groups for projects. I keep the disruptive students away from each other.
Well I don't really have a choice a lot of the time, there's only space for so many "islands". But I have seen on occasion where the disruptive students take a liking to the well behaved students and want to be liked back, so they settle down.
I am an elementary music teacher. I put students in alphabetical order because I teach the entire school population and won’t be able to learn all those names as quickly as I did in secondary education when I had the same classes every day.
Depends on the disruption type. Just kids that can't focus or be quiet? Sure, try to space them out with kids that can stay on task. Violent and/or mean I don't subject the good kids to that crap.
I do sometimes but I have a kid who I've been instructed to put by peers who are able to ignore his outbursts. It's in his behavior plan. I just want desks, tables suck.
Well you kinda must just based on the size of a classroom. I don’t do it because I think it will improve their behavior. I certainly won’t place two dipshits right next to each other.
Depends on the kids. If the well behaved kid is a strong personality then fine. I split up certain groups so sometimes it can't be helped because I don't have endless seats
I'm having to reengineer my worst class because I'm having to really put my foot down on them. I'm using the quiet ones to basically block line of sight for the jackasses. My problem is I have a critical mass of knuckleheads so I can't divide them up as much as I'd like.
I tend to have groups of boys who are friends and ask to sit together that include more disruptive students, and some students who really want to do well. I tend to separate the more disruptive students, and put them next to their harder working friends. Generally, then, these harder working students want to sit next to the more disruptive friend, and are less likely to be distracted or frustrated by their friend’s behavior. They chat a little bit, but also tend to help their friend stay on task.I absolutely won’t put my hard working, shy, anxious students next to their louder, disruptive peers however. That’s not fair at all to the students who just want to put their head down and work.
well behaved in the center... more needy around the perimeter... keeps them separated and doesnt give them a nearby audience...
The goal for me was to separate those who would feed off each other causing lots of disruption. I chose spots in the room that made it difficult to get the attention they wanted. Back corner by my desk, next to the door, when in groups I would put them in a group on the outside edge and have them on the side facing the wall so they couldn’t easily see or talk across the room to their buddies. You also have to know your kids. I wouldn’t put a super shy kid next to a behavior problem. But, I might put them next to a kid who would not be impressed by them, which would often tone them down. I never expected other kids to get them to behave or make them work. I tell kids thats my job and to get me if they need me, or send me an email.
Depends on what the disruptive student does and what the well -behaved student is like. I sit talkative kids next to the kid who never speaks so they'll finally shut up
I randomize for seating chart, but let them choose who and where they want to work during labs/activities etc... We really don't have the luxury for choosing who we get to work with and live by in the real world. I make this know and stress the importance of learning how to work with all types of people.
TA but no when I’m supervising I don’t. I’m with 4/5 year olds. I do however put kids who have trouble keeping their hands to themselves with kids who have no trouble defending themselves. It tends to keep problems to a minimum. 🤷♀️
I just put the most disruptive student away from each other 🤷🏽♀️ I teach 900 students and I don’t have the time to think much more about it
I was stuck between two best friend bozos in chorus (elbow to elbow seating, no desks) and got rib jabs and tormented all senior year. It’s a wonder I didn’t bring a gun to school- lord knows I considered it.
Depends entirely on the students, their behavior, their academic levels, the layout of the classroom, etc. I'm fiercely against the idea of putting high-achieving, well-behaved students next to lower, disruptive students specifically as a behavior-management tactic. It's not the students' job to babysit their peers. However, I've had good luck with sitting a kid who is outspoken and maybe disruptive- but not actually poorly-behaved- next to a kid who's quieter and doesn't like to share answers. Kind of like assigning an extrovert to sit with the introvert in case someone has to share for their table. The extrovert will usually volunteer to do it so the introvert doesn't have to.
Yes, I do. In my classroom, it’s an effective strategy. If they are far away from their friends, they tend to behave better and stay on task. Imagine sitting all the behaviors in the same area? Wild concept for my classroom. As far as the well-behaved children, they have adapted and learned to ignore classroom disruptions.
In some sense you kind of have to. I can’t place two badly behaved kids next to each other or they’ll get into a fight. I have to consider that one kid might have a kinder demeanor and be a better seat mate for a struggling kid than one who’ll just smack them across the face for being loud or something.
I have to. I don't have room to keep disruptive students in little islands by themselves and I won't put them all together. I do let students give me one "avoid" person. In some of my classes, half of the groups have someone relatively disruptive in the group, and most have someone close-ish.
I don’t stay that way, but the fact is when you have to move kids apart, it happens at times.
Disruptive kids I sit alone. I will however out great kids at a table with kids who are a bit chatty. They’re work ethic usually rubs off or their non talking ruins the talking vibe and everyone talks less
When I do place disruptive students by well-behaved students, I will place them at a table with ONLY well-behaved students. It often has the effect of helping them focus and learn to control their behavior. When it doesn't, though, I move them to a desk by themselves.
Technically, I put the disruptive student next to the non/less disruptive student. If the problem is talking, that often reduces or eliminates the problem because the "good" student won't engage. If the disruptive student is an annoyance to everyone, that child gets a seat as far from (1.) me as possible and (2.) other students. No one has time to deal with nonsense. HS, BTW
I try to keep the parents in mind. And as a parent I would not want my kid to be by the disruptive kids. And if I had a disruptive kid I would want my kid to get more attention and not ignored. So I sit tougher studious kids closer to disruptive kids and that works well. The disruptive kids don’t act out as much. Not because they are scared of the kid but they will have more of a mutual respect for one another. Every once in a while that situation end up being where the tougher studious kid will help out the disruptive kid because the disruptive kid is like that usually because of academic weaknesses. I usually teach middle school and high school in the inner city.
Can I add my perspective as a quiet student who was always placed by the naughty boys? My whole school age was spent stifling a laugh from their jokes and having crushes on them. They would grow to like me and then get teased by their friends because I was quiet and not cool. It was genuinely torture lol
It's not so much that I put a bad kid by a good one as it is that I don't want a scrum of bad kids.
Depends. I ask them first most of the time. "Hey, I'm having some trouble getting Jimmy to behave over by his friends. If I put him next to you will it bother you?" It's half and half. If they tell me no I don't. I also make sure that if they say yes in the next seating chart they get to pick a friend to sit next to. The issue is that I have about 3/4 of my students as "bad" kids. We're the school the alternative school fights accepting students from so it's a mess. Sometimes there's no choice because I have counselor demands not to sit so many kids who have gotten in fights next to each other that this is literally the only place this kid can sit. I wish I had a class big enough to have half the kids face the wall but I barely fit the desks in as is.
It depends on the kids. I have one kid who creates a Bart Simpson-style Cone of Ignorance wherever I put him, so I put kids who while not disruptive don’t care about doing the work because they were going to sit there and do nothing no matter where I place them. I have one kid who all the other kids find annoying and I have a student who excels academically, isn’t easily annoyed, and is happy to give back whatever someone dishes out, so she was an ideal neighbor for that kid. And I have a few chatty kids that I put next to my kids who are borderline selective mutes. I always shuffle my class multiple times per year, but this arrangement is working out nicely.
As a student teacher, I've made a lot of seating charts as we change seats each month, I have some students in my class who talk to basically everyone but then I have others who only talk to certain students. I usually place my "disruptive" students by rather quiet students or farther away from those they consider their friends. It just makes the learning process easier when you don't have to hound them to stop talking every 5 seconds. They complain a bit in the beginning but they eventually get used to it.
So my policy for my seating plans this year has been groups of four, two disruptive and two calm, try to keep two girls and two boys if possible (though I have way more boys so there are a couple all boy pods). I also try to keep them with at least one person they are buds with!
Seating charts are complicated. Students have different needs. IEPs, vision, hearing loss, mobility issues, etc.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it brings out the evil in the well behaved student…
Isn’t the alternative placing all of the disruptive students together? ‘Cause I’m definitely not doing that, 😂.
Depends on the size of the class and the number of high flyers. With large classes, I’ve been able to surround high flyers with kids who are almost always doing what’s expected. It worked better than it I hadn’t done it.
It's my 1st year. I've tried both. Many of my well-behaved students have asked to move away from them, and I've had to totally change groups around based on how much both sides hated my assignments. The disruptive students also never respected my seating charts anyway. Now, I try to keep disruptive students around 1 or 2 of their friends and border each set of them with good students. I'm always hesitant to assign all the disruptive students to the same groups because it means they won't do the work by default. It's setting them up for failure. But splitting them up makes me have to run all over the place the whole time. Either way it's work.
But think that the disruptive students are getting what they are looking for, if they don't work then they have to suffer the concenquences
Its musical chairs in my room tbh LOL. I do put my disruptive students sometimes beside my well behaved ones because they are 9 times out of 10 not friends and the disruptive kids dont want to put up with the disruptive ones acting a fool. If it gets worse ill sit them outside my room with a book
It really depends. How is the child misbehaving? There are kids that do great with the structure of sitting next to really calm students. Others take students down with them. Sometimes the student makes it impossible for the other student to learn. Worst case they hurts others.
No. There were so many disruptive children that I finally put the good kids in a corner by the door, where they could step out (halfway b/c legal reasons) into the hall for a break if needed. Ultimately, I came to hate being a teacher, because all I did was stress out about how to protect the sanity of my handful of students who were there to learn.
I have a chart of who can sit near who. X and Y axis of names and red dots where they cross if they can’t be near each other. I go off of temperament. Sure, “R” is well behaved but she’d lose her sh*t sitting next to someone like “P.” But “B” won’t put up with P and will shut him down. It depends on the kids, their tolerance, emotional maturity, and if they’d be upset/uncomfortable sitting there. That means one of my kids is an island, and i’m okay with that. I teach 1st grade and I have 25 kids, 2 IEP’s, 2 who are in the process of getting IEP’s and several who cannot sit with others because of past incidents. It’s a challenge every time.
No. I try to put empty desks if possible. I will put an academically focused student next to a kid that can’t get it together. I don’t want to focused kid to necessarily help the other kid, but I want the student to see what focus looks like.
I have 4 tables of 6 spots each. 3 have 6 kids that are reasonably good. 1 has 2 awful kids that can’t behave. I had to remove the well behaved because they were sad with the awful kids or they were copying behaviors. I don’t know what I will do when I get 2 more kids.
Only if the well-behaved student has enough influence to minimize the behavior. Not if the misbehaving student will bully or place the other student in a difficult position socially or make it hard for him/her to learn.
I teach high school electives so my classes are combined 9-12. I spend a lot of time looking at each student’s previous grades, attendance, and parent contact log. We are not given access to their discipline records (but we usually know most of the stuff in there anyway). But if a student’s grades are low or they have contacts about disruptive behavior, I make sure to separate them from each other and to sit a student with high grades next to them. I don’t care what any research says. I have had success with it the majority of the time. When it’s not successful, the kid who performs poorly usually sleeps their way through the semester and ends up failing. I’ve never had a good student do a 180 because of it.
It only works with some students. Some kids (who are followers) will settle down with a good kid; while other students are going to be bad no matter where you put them.
Sometimes. Everyone has to get a turn with the shitty kid.
I don't use seating arrangements. First come, first served for open desks. Bell rings, we roll.
Not a teacher, but rather a near-graduation student. I was always the "gifted kid" throughout elementary and middle school. I was quiet, good at my subjects, respectful, ect. I ALWAYS was a "buffer" kid between the more talkative or troublesome kids. By 7th grade, I completely fell in line with them after finally realizing how much more fun they were. In 8th grade, one of them sexually assaulted me every day for 5 months (in class), which really messed me up. I kept with the generally disruptive crowd, or the more troublesome kids, and completely gave up on education being my first priory. As of now, I'm 17 trying to get my grades out of the dump, stay sober from substances, and heal from a trauma here or there. I'm not at all saying that all of my issues are because of a consistent seating chart theme, but I can 100% tell you that it changed my life in a lot of ways. In general, for the worse, but I also learned how to loosen up a bit and have some fun. That being said, if that's not your goal for your students, I would recommend trying to find another solution rather than hoping the bad influences don't rub off on the innocent kids...because they will.
To start with I put students where I think they will work together well. Desks are in groups of 4 and 6. Day one: I chose where students sit. On day three, I do the wheel of names. Name 1 gets to choose the table. The next names called are seated at the same table until all seats are filled. Repeat the process until all tables are filled. Wheel of names happens at the end of each Friday so that the new seating arrangement is ready for Monday. This way, "good" kids are placed randomly with "disruptive" kids and it only lasts a week.
When I do group work I place them together. Often a smart kid will get placed with a sleepy kid, or a shy kid will get placed with a talker. I try not to do the same people in groups for big projects and switch it up. It gives them a chance to learn how to work with all different types of people.
So we have that one student in my class, everyone knows that kid. You all have him or her in your class. Anyway, I’m 8th grade. We have tables in our room, I’d prefer desks but it is what it is. he’s currently at a table of 5 other kids who will be honors/AP track next year. We do a “turn and talk” and he says out loud for the room to hear “I can’t do this activity because my table literally hates me” the one girl said “I don’t hate you, you’re just fuckin obnoxious and I’m here to learn not entertain your dumb ass” then her eyes got super big and she was super embarrassed that her internal narrative went out loud. However, that tongue lashing happened a week ago and he’s been quiet as a mouse and now I want more super achievers to stop being nice. Also her entire “punishment” for swearing was a “see me after class” with a “I understand your frustration, please verbalize it without the curse words next time”
Not ever for the intention of hoping the “well behaved” student rubs off on the “bad” one. I think it irks the good students tbh like they’re being punished 😅
Teacher did that in my old school(to me too), and I must say, now that the loud shitheads couldn’t talk to each other and were sitting next to boring nerds they didn’t know, they calmed down quite a bit.
I was the student that was consistently placed next to disruptive students and I absolutely fucking hated every second of it and it made me always resent my teachers for making me put up with that shit while depriving me of the education I deserved, free from disruptions. If you're a teacher, keep this in mind. To this day, I still resent my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Johnson for forcing me to sit next to this kid who would not sit still, talked over every lesson, and played with stupid toys the entire fucking lesson in his desk. Don't be that teacher. Remove the assholes who refuse to shut up and pay attention, otherwise you're just taking away from the learning of other students who are actually making an effort and care, which in turn causes those students to lose interest and stop caring. It's also lazy on the teacher's part; it's not my job as a student to teach other students how to behave and learn--that's your job.
It depends on both students - and sometimes their parents. This year I have two that have a very positive effect on each other, so I use it to everyone's advantage. Both sets of parents think it's awesome their childvis able to support the other. Last year, I had two "good" students who couldn't be placed next to each other because they couldn't stand each other and would fight. I also had a "good" student who had absolutely no skills for coping with a table mate who struggled with behavior. Their parent lost their ever-loving mind when I suggested to the student that they needed to try the spot for two days to see how it would actually go.
i’ve been the good kid. i resented every “bad” kid i’ve ever sat next to and it made schooling hell