Tables and Chairs

I am in the process of acquiring card tables. Last year I decided to get rid of my desks and was very happy with the decision. My feeling at the time was that desks encourage kids to feel restrained, as though they have to be right all the time and as though they must stifle their creativity. We train our students that the goal is to be correct, rather than to make progress, and to do it right rather than trying out a lot of different ways. Students have learned to ask teachers the question 'how do you want me to do this?' rather than asking themselves 'how many ways can I do this?'. Desks, for me, were a symbol of that manifesto, so my goal in getting rid of the desks was to create a community learning feeling where students did not feel restrained behind a wood desk, but rather were immediately in contact with the rest of the classroom community. Furthermore, I wanted room in the middle of the classroom where students could practice plays, run relays, and do large group activities that hadn't been possible when there were desks.



That said, the very good point was made that it leaves my students without a hard surface when we need to write, draw, use large sheets of paper, or do group activities like centers. My school at the time had several science tables, so we lined the outside of the classroom with tables, dragging them into the center of the room when we needed them. The arrangement needed some getting used to, because while it did accomplish what I wanted it to, it also left the kids feeling a little more chatty than usual. By the end of the year, though, we had it down, and I had a huge amount of space in my classroom that I didn't have before.

Now, though, I want to put things on the periphery of my classroom, and it would be great if I could just fold the tables up when they're not in use. Enter card tables. I could get long folding tables (6 ft, 8 ft), but that makes it harder to do group work because there are fewer tables in the end. So instead I am acquiring card tables that seat 4 students, 5 in a pinch. I am also painting the tops of all of them with whiteboard paint. Students will be able to use their tables, when they're out, as giant whiteboards, so if you don't have giant whiteboards (which can be pretty easily acquired from CostCo if you're interested), this makes activities like popcorn reading HUGELY easier. If they draw on them, I can use the document camera to project what they've drawn for the class, and we can tell stories like this. The tables range from $10 (craigslist) to 29 (target), and I need about nine of them. I'm slowly acquiring them over the next couple months, and I'm excited to see how this turns out.