Seating plans are a pedagogical tool that needs careful consideration. And creating a new seating order is one of many essential tasks when class teachers prepare for a new academic year.
In the classroom, a seating plan brings order and stability to the social dynamics of the peer group. And yet such a plan ought to change regularly and bring variety to their daily interaction.
The class teacher’s well-thought-out seating plan balances the children’s natural tendency to form mutual sympathy groups.
These groups may gang up on each other and on outsiders, driven by that deep-rooted tribal instinct which is the perpetual cause of human conflict and war.
Waldorf teachers: It is a key aim of our seating plans to help students overcome this unreflected urge to form “us-against-them” cliques.
Regard it as a contribution to World Peace – small but significant.
What is the therapeutic effect of placing those next to each other who don’t get on?
Allowing them to know each other better!
When children experience that a disliked desk neighbour is unexpectedly helpful; when they discover a shared interest or make each other laugh, these moments can bring about a change of heart:
“He’s not so bad after all!” or “I like her better now.”
However, when seating natural opponents side by side, a teacher needs to be fully conscious of the potential for conflict and unhappiness.
It must be made clear to all, parents included, that this exercise in tolerance is temporary and has a clearly defined end.
When class teachers don’t give their seating order sufficient thought, the effect can be devastating.
Example: In Class 2, a boy was placed next to a girl whose annoying manner was a daily irritation. She vexed him on purpose and it made him unhappy; but he bore it bravely, knowing that the seating plan would change after the next holiday.
That day he came to school expectantly and eagerly – to find that, though everyone else had new desk neighbours, he was placed next to that same girl again. The boy went home in tears, all joy and motivation gone.
Questioned by his dismayed parents, the class teacher shrugged. “We all know she’s difficult,” he said, “but someone has to sit next to her.”
Ouch! … Don’t let such an appalling pedagogical blunder happen on your watch.
Fair Seating Plans are Important
Your very first seating plan for a new class is normally made without knowing the children. In this case it will form the basis for close observation of the social interactions in your group.
Should irritations and complaints arise, explain when the seating will be changed. And then work out your following seating plans so that they are fair to everyone.
Their first seating plan makes such a deep impression on young children that they will remember for years where they – and everyone else – sat at the start of Class 1.
How to Make Fair Seating Plans
Your growing collection of earlier seating plans provides the data for creating the next one. That’s why good recordkeeping is essential.
In classrooms with desk rows, there are several aspects to consider, and to record in your log:
- Desk neighbours to either side: who?
- Desk place by row: front, middle or back row?
- Desk place in the row: at its centre, at one end, or in between?
To help with the planning, draw your desk rows (or any other layout) on a piece of card. Then make a set of name tags and move them around as you consult your lists and work out where everyone is going to sit next:
Those who were at the back of the classroom are now moved to the front and middle rows. The former front row is dispersed across the room. Children at the end of a row move in towards the middle, and vice versa.
Not unlike a game of chess, making a fair seating plan requires time and much careful thought.
An unclaimed desk place can be used like the Joker in a game of cards.
It is helpful to keep one list showing where everyone has not sat yet, and another that shows which children have not yet been desk neighbours. These can then be crossed off as you go.
Decide on inevitably necessary compromises with good earlier matches in mind, and not as in the example above.
Mixing the Sexes
Alternating boys and girls in a row is beneficial to the whole group. It keeps the mood more peaceful and pre-empts their tendency to segregate into gender groups, as is often seen in the playground.
Once I let an older class choose desk places freely, and the result was straight out of ‘Tom Sawyer’: All boys to one side of the room, the girls to the other – neatly separated by the middle aisle.
This is not our way!
Waldorf pedagogy is the world’s first educational system with a gender-neutral curriculum, now a hundred years old, and in our classrooms we practise equality on a daily basis.
But we recognise differences and don’t try to negate them. Studying both the common traits and the individual characteristics in our group, we then strive to work with them towards harmony and balance.
In effect, seating boys and girls in mixed rows from a young age makes them regard it as natural to work, learn and play together on an equal footing.
And all this without snide remarks from others; without embarrassing taunts about “being in love with so-and-so”.
As a result, the members of Waldorf classes develop relationships that are similar to those of siblings: Not always entirely loving, but always carried by a true understanding of each other’s character – the talents and challenges, the strengths and weaknesses, and the shared history of many years.
And, given the fact that grading and testing play no discernible part in the Waldorf Way of teaching, our classes grow and learn not as competitors, but as friends and team mates.
Grouping the Temperaments
Rudolf Steiner suggested grouping the pupils according to their predominant temperament:
“As teachers we need to establish in the first months which of these characteristics are prominent in each child in order to identify his or her temperament; then we can divide the class into four groups and change the seating order accordingly. (…)
This serves a particular purpose. While we teach a lesson only once, we present a variety of contents, as we have different things to say and to show. (…)
When we present something that is meant to have a particular effect on the senses, we turn more to the sanguine group. When we reflect on some observation we turn to the melancholic children. (…)
What is lacking in one group will then be added by the other …”
First Teachers’ Course, Stuttgart 1919, Discussion 1
It was the first known attempt to bring differentiation into the classroom. It was also intended to make teaching more economical in very large classes.
And it was expected to have a curative effect:
Phlegmatic children would be spurred to activity by the inertia of the phlegmatics around them. Melancholics would feel the urge to lighten the serious mood of their group.
According to Hahnemann’s basic tenet “like cures like”, one-sided states can be treated by exposing them to something of a similar nature, because it will impel an organism to generate the opposite quality in its natural tendency to strive for healthy balance.
Steiner applied this homeopathic principle to the human soul forces as they express themselves in the temperaments.
Here the aim of the seating plan is to overcome natural one-sidedness by working daily, in tiny little steps, towards achieving a more balanced soul state.
Should you be unfamiliar with the Ancient Greek concept of the four temperaments, I’ll give you a brief explanation.
There are four basic ways of responding to an idea, an impulse or a situation:
- immediate and forceful = choleric (responses are swift and strong = loudly passionate)
- delayed and forceful = melancholic (responses are slow and strong = deeply emotional)
- delayed and transient = phlegmatic (responses are slow and weak = mostly unflappable)
- immediate and transient = sanguine (responses are swift and weak = easily distracted)
But do cholerics really slow down and become more tranquil amongst likeminded natural leaders? I have not been able to observe a calming effect on this subgroup in the classroom.
And the sanguine group, happy as Larry, hijacks lessons like straw fire. They can’t help it, for their motto is: We love to entertain you!
Sanguine children are in their true element together, and the permanent goings-on in their group hold everyone else spellbound. Watching open-mouthed, crayons frozen in mid-air, the fascinated class is unable to get any work done.
And the teacher despairs. Admonishing words are no match for this situation. She knows full well that she has brought this on herself.
How to compete for attention with her little sanguine circus?
Yes, this was the only time I ever considered changing my seating plan early, but I did see it through and learnt my lesson. The sanguine group would henceforth be well diluted.
Steiner, had he been a class teacher, would likely have re-thought and fine-tuned his general advice. Or maybe sanguine children were less exuberant in his time.
His recommendation is of course worth considering. Try it out when the time is right and learn from the experience.
It is not meant as a commandment:
“Keep in mind that there is no one single way of doing such things. One teacher may do one thing that is right in such a case while another does something else that is also good.
We don’t need to work towards pedantic standardization, although there are certain guiding principles that need to be understood.”
First Teachers’ Course, Stuttgart 1919, Discussion 2
Influencing Social Dynamics
In my years as a language teacher, I was able to experience and compare the social effects of seating plans across many classes.
Knowing the children well, I could see how changes in the seating would influence, and usually improve, their interaction as time went by.
Remarkable was the group whose teacher placed them according to temperament, late in Class 1, and then stuck to that seating year after year.
The dulling effect made me resolve never to do the same.
In summary: Our concern is the healthy social interaction of all group members. An often changing but always fair seating plan is an important tool for guiding and supporting its development.
I was so heartened to see that you consider the seating in a class. I have had to find my way with seating and your organization makes so much sense. Thank you for spelling it out so clearly and with good sense.
Thank you, Thesa, for sharing your thoughts. Such feedback is much appreciated!