Seating Chart Requests

Every six weeks my kiddos get a new seating chart. I love seating charts. Secretly, so do my students: they hardly ever complain. I think my kids need the comfort of knowing where to sit each day, besides the fact that a seating chart gives me the power to reduce bullying, harassment, cliques, flirtatious folly, giggling, games of "pencil break" and "bloody knuckles," and, of course, talking.

Still, a seating chart doesn't have to be top-down tyranny. This is where choice, that ever important ingredient for a democratic classroom, comes into the recipe. In my classroom, students get to make written requests for where they would like to sit in the room. By giving them voice at the fore-front, I'm preventing arguments or huffing-and-puffing after the seat assignments are delivered.

Here are some requests:

(Note the printed name and signature above - and its adorable-ness.)

Some are more practiced in the art of persuasion than others, but still each student makes his or her point loud and clear.

I also allow my students to request classroom jobs, as these change every six weeks with the seating chart.

This one is my favorite. It's a fairly accurate map of my classroom, showing the student's desired seating arrangements.

Despite all my best efforts to include their voices in the process, there is inevitably someone who is unhappy the day new seats are assigned. So, I always begin like this: "I tried to honor as many as requests as I could. When one request contradicted another, I used my best judgement as to who would sit best near whom. If you come to your new seat and find you cannot sit by the person next to whom you assigned, please write me a note and leave it in the 'Question & Comment' box. Do not make a face or react in any way to your new seat, or your request (and future requests) will not be taken into consideration."

Then I walk around the room and say all the new seats while the kids stay seated. When I finish they all move at once, quickly and quietly, to their new seats. I find this reduces the chaos that so often plagues the middle school classroom. Which, after all, is what a seating chart is meant to do.