Why We Should Sit with Our Students
When we come to the level of our learners, good things happen.
This is my 19th year of teaching, and if I’m honest, not a lot of my time in the classroom has been spent physically sitting with students.
I mean, I’ve always done it now and then, I suppose. But the vast majority of my time has been spent standing, circulating around the room, or sitting at my teacher’s desk.
Ah, the teacher’s desk.
Getting Real About Where I Am on This
There are amazing teachers out there who have completely rid themselves of a teacher’s desk. Who have completely redesigned and reimagined their classrooms as living rooms or cafe-style spaces.
I’m not one of those teachers. At least, not yet.
The reality is that in my current context, I happen to like my teacher’s desk. It’s got a nice chair and a decent desktop computer that connects to the drives on our school server. The desktop also plays videos more reliably than my aging laptop. Going desktop-free isn’t a great option right now.
So I won’t pretend for a moment to be the sort of teacher who always sits with his students — although if that’s you, you have my respect.
But I am getting better at it.
What We Gain When We Sit with Students
I teach in an eighth grade homeroom context, and I’m probably at the place now where I sit beside students or in student desks at least once per day on average.
I’ve never asked students for direct feedback on this practice, partly because the last thing I want to do is weird out my 13 year-old learners. How do you feel about me sitting beside you?
My sense, however, is that it’s always a positive move. In my view, sharing a space with students dignifies them and their learning. It suggests lots of positive messages, including I’m interested in your learning and I’m not above you.
It reinforces the notion that despite the differences in age, experience, and expertise, we’re all learners. In that sense, I belong in a student desk as much as anyone.
We know that teacher proximity improves student focus, reduces off-task behavior, improves teacher access, and provides a rich source of formative feedback. I get a pretty clear picture of my students’ current learning when I’m sitting inches away from them.
When I put it that way, it’s not a stretch to say that sitting with students is best practice.
Period.
Whenever I sit with students, I also notice other things: the discomfort of the chairs, different perspectives in the room, or other environmental dynamics that I forget about.
Thoughts From My PLN on Sitting with Students
As I thought about this post, I threw out this practice to my professional learning network on Twitter.
Do you sit with students? Does it make a difference in your classroom?
I was curious to hear about the experiences of others — and I wasn’t disappointed. Apparently, educators are pretty passionate on this point.
In their words, here is how, when, and why some of these education leaders sit with students.
8 Reasons to Sit with Our Students
The thread goes on, and I was thoroughly impressed by the depth of responses. In the end, here is my distillation of the key thoughts from my learning community.
Sitting with students …
- Removes perceived barriers
- Increases student engagement and focus
- Facilitates helpful conversations
- Provides a source of formative assessment
- Identifies learning difficulties and challenges
- Builds community, intimacy, and trust
- Strengthens teacher-student relationships
- Forms sense of solidarity around a mission of learning
Suzanne’s tweet says it best. When we sit down, we teach up.
Let’s sit with our students.
