The Case for Assigned Seats
I believe that—implemented intentionally—they help create classroom community.
For those who have read my posts on here or listened to our Broken Copier conversations, I think one of my most consistent messages is the importance of leaning into student choice and voice. I don’t believe our education system prioritizes student agency nearly enough; and I don’t believe our education system seeks out and responds to student feedback nearly enough.
It might be weird, then, that one of my strongest beliefs about the foundation of a classroom community is the importance of assigned seats within it.
Starting Day 1.
If you’re picturing a draconian arrangement of alphabetically-assigned rows of individual desks, I assure you that’s not what I mean. Rather, my perspective is that if implemented intentionally a system of assigned seats can be a foundational aspect of a thriving classroom community—including an elevation of student choice and voice within it.
Here’s my case for why.
The Value of Intentional Structure
When students walk into my room for the first time, I want them to feel a sense of structure—not as a limitation of their agency and capacity, but rather as a platform for it.
So the first day of school, there I am with my clipboard outside the door—not just to take attendance as students walk in but also to give them their assigned seat number. I have randomly assigned them, too, for the most part, to avoid the alphabetical pairings that students have likely been confined to many times over already. (Example: Luis A sitting next to Carla A at the front of the room yet again…Surprise!)
At each desk, students will find not only their desk number but one of four colors upon it. The desks are also set up in pairs but also in proximity to another pair, making for an easy “stand and get into your Group of 4” transition.
This is where I believe intentionally-designed assigned seating elevates our classroom community: it affords me myriad tools for collaborative activities and conversation:
“Even-numbered desks: you go first. Now odd-numbered”
“Look at the color on your desk label and then go to that corner of the room!”
“Get into your group of 4, and the lowest desk number in it will be your ambassador to share your results with the group next to you clockwise.”
The mistake, I think, is assuming that being flexible as a teacher leads to flexibility in the classroom as, at least in my experience, is that intentionally creating structure is what really opens the door to collaboration and creativity as far as what a classroom can feel like and ultimately become.
(Additionally, assigned seating greatly expedites my own process of getting to know student names at the beginning of the year—which I think is also important to facilitating community as early as possible!)
Building Community Over Time, Too
Do students love assigned seating?
Many don’t—and often, they are quite vocal about it! I take this seriously, too, as I am strong advocate of being as responsive to student feedback as I can be in the classroom.
However, along with the functional advantage for community-building assigned seating affords me, there is also the obvious downside to what happens when students sit where they want: they sit next to students they already know.
If the goal of your classroom community is that students get to know the entire classroom community, then, I think it is really important to backwards plan for that community by not only having assigned seats early on but intentionally rotating them over the year so that students have opportunities to work with different classmates. I even have students highlight the name of their new partner/group member on their personal class roster taped in their spiral notebook to emphasize this after each rotation. This is one of the ways I try to be transparent about the why behind the assigned seating with students.
Does rotating for new partners mean taking time as a teacher at the beginning of each seat change—roughly every six weeks in our classroom—to look at past seating assignments and plan out a new arrangement that achieves this?
Yep, and I’d argue that it is 100% worth it if your goal is to achieve the vision of what a classroom community can be.
More Supportive of Individual Students
Recently I went to an all-district professional development session and got there early, so I took a seat at an open group of desks.
Then I proceeded to watch one group of teachers after another from other schools in the district who already knew each other walk into the room already chatting, all choose other desk groups and, before I knew it, there I was: back in high school freshman year, sitting alone at my own group of four desks, wondering who was going to sit next to me.
Even as a second-decade, fairly-confident teacher, it was a fantastic moment of empathy for me considering how many students probably feel this way walking into a classroom at the beginning of the year without assigned seats.
I believe that assigned seating arrangements can remove this anxiety and make the classroom a more-welcoming space, particularly in those pivotal moments early in the year. And in this current moment of rising mental health struggles for students, prioritizing the needs of those students when they step into the classroom is definitely a priority for me.
On top of that, assigned seating also allows for discretion when considering the individual needs of students, whether in formal IEP’s as far as seating location or responding to preferences of students. (Example: in recent years, I’ve seen an uptick of students requesting to be seated facing the door due to anxiety around school shootings.)
If seating is flexible and then you all of a sudden tell students where they need to sit, that is both obvious and sometimes disruptive—including to the community as a whole. This isn’t nearly as much of a problem when seats are assigned, though, and in my view that makes it considerably easier to support students individually.
And in today’s classroom, I feel like supporting students individually matters as much as it ever has.
You Still Can Be Responsive To Student Feedback
Early on in each school year, I offer a survey question for students to give a list of classmates they’d prefer to sit next to in upcoming units or, in some cases, who they would prefer not to sit next to. In this way, the assigned seats going forward take into consideration the voices of students.
Further, as the year moves forward, sometimes I’ll even survey the class about arrangements themselves (see image above). This does not end with the Google Form question, either; it moves into whole-class discussion where I can listen to their feedback around which set-up in the classroom is best for them as a learner. Sometimes I even hear about what’s working for them in other classrooms, creating a great conversation starter with other teachers about their choices that I can learn from.
All this considered, though, I also take into account other measures of our classroom community, including student feedback on our classroom core beliefs—as in these surveys again and again the community has gotten stronger in our classroom in past years by sticking with assigned seating from September all the way to June. That data matters, too.
Do some students still prefer to sit where they want? Of course.
But often those same students end the year acknowledging that it would not have been the same classroom community had it been flexible seating, and for me that is the feedback that I really hold onto.
All That Said, Do What Works For Your Classroom
I think I’ve been doing this teaching thing long enough to acknowledge that there is not “one right way” to do anything in the classroom—and I know many other very-successful teachers who have a different philosophy for seating in their rooms.
So as much as I have conviction that intentionally-assigned seats throughout the year are what is best for my classroom, I want to end this piece by acknowledging that all contexts are different and that if something else works for you you should 100% go with it. (And feel free to share in the comments, too!)
The value that I’d argue matters more than anything, really, is a willingness to reflect on how your physical classroom space is shaping the learning experience as well as the community within the classroom.
Every tool counts, in my view. Including where students sit.
—Marcus
And for those who are beginning school this week, good luck! I’m very envious of you in some ways, but of course also very much appreciative of the month I still have to get ready. Have a great week! (We will call this payback for all of your vacation photos I had to see on my timeline in June while I was grading final essays/exams!)
Student placement in the room is one of the great tools that teachers have to manage the class and to help students build relationships. Also, I'm with you. It was always the only hope in hell I had of learning names before Thanksgiving.
Back in the years when we had a long vacationless stretch between New Years and Easter, I would have two weeks of a new seating chart every day. It's the little things that keep life interesting.
I hold the same belief. If a child is struggling in a spot, I move them. I often keep initial seating the same but students will move about and work with different groups. There is a comfort in knowing a spot is yours.