For context I’m from the UK.
Most UK classrooms have tables of varying sizes for students to sit around, with the idea being that this way a teacher can very easily divide everyone into groups based on what table they’re sitting at.
Most American schools I see in films and TV, however, have small individual desks. Sometimes the chairs even seem to be attached, which presumably prevents kids from dragging their chair over to another desk, even if there was room to do so.
So how do you do group work? Do you have to physically push entire desks and chairs together every time? (I admittedly have no idea how heavy they are. Are they easy for younger kids to move?)
Or do you sit on the floor or stand up or go outside whenever you’re working in groups? Or is group work just not that big of a thing in US schools? (From what I remember when I was in school, we’d usually do some kind of group or paired activity at least once a lesson.)
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Group work certainly is a big thing in American schools.
Desks can be clustered together. Lots of classrooms also have tables for groups of students to sit at.
IME, we moved the desks. They’re light and easily moved by children, it’s not a big deal.
Desks can be moved… they aren’t bolted to the floor, and they aren’t hard to move. We had no issues moving them when we were 8 or 9 years old.
Elementary age kids usually have tables instead of desks. For middle school and up, you just slide the desks together to make them a table. They are light
Move the desks
> Most American schools I see in films and TV
Does UK TV show schools accurately?
I’m going to guess they don’t. Individual desks used to be a lot more common, but they have fallen out of favor.
Even then, individual desks can be moved pretty easily. They don’t weigh very much.
I the desks can easily be pushed together. Some classrooms use long tables instead of desks or have clusters of desks anyway.
It’s not a problem.
It’s easy enough to cluster the desks together if you need to. They aren’t heavy
And in a lot of my middle/high school science classes we sat at lab benches instead anyway.
In my middle school we had older desks that were pretty solid. But you could still scoot them around together. In high school I had desks that weren’t heavy at all. We actually made a big circle.
If the class was the type that you usually had a partner most has longer tables. I remember quite a few classes were I always sat next to someone at a shared table.
The desks are pretty light. They are easy to move around so you can push them together for group work. Classes that have a lot of group work will just be set up with the desks typically pushed together or in the case of science labs will be in a special room with all of the science equipment that has the students at contiguous countertops. Some classrooms will have tables instead of desks.
You turn your whole desk and slide it next to someone else’s.
What you see in movies is not how most classrooms actually look like. Generally 4-6 desks are grouped together and those students work on group projects together.
You scooch the desks together, or sit on the floor (which was usually pretty clean at my school and I was a rugrat growing up so I never minded). You might also move to a space with bigger tables if that’s important. Like the library or cafeterias tended to have long tables so we might use those sometimes.
And we have smaller desks for little kids. But also when I was in elementary school we were seated 4 to a square table. I didn’t have an individual desk until middle school (6th grade for me, or when I was 11). By that point we were big enough that the desks weren’t hard to move. They aren’t that heavy.
My kid’s school has tables for the younger kids. Older kids have clusters of desks. TVs and Movies are always going to show a classroom with the desks arranged all facing the same way because that’s going to be a better camera angle; it lets you see all of the actor’s faces at the same time.
The desks with the attached chairs are easy to move together.
I only had that style desk in middle school (grades 7-8) though. In grades k-6 we had tables that seated 4-6 students and in grades 9-12 we had single desks with separate chairs.
The desks are easy to move around and move close together, plus you can fold the desk part away if they get in the way. In my school if we broke into groups for projects or presentations, some groups might go into a different room with a larger table and to avoid the noise of everyone talking. And even though those desk/chair combos are very common, other types of desks and tables are also used.
We moved the desks if we needed to, just stood, sat in adjacent desks and leaned, whatever.
It was never a big deal and we didn’t do that much group work in class outside of labs which obviously don’t have those desks.
You move the desks together
Pretty sure some elementary schools have tables where people face each other
We pushed the desks together. It takes 10 seconds and yes, a child can easily slide it around the room.
In my experience there were classrooms with both types, some large desks with separate chairs, some with those combo desk chairs. But there were times where we would do group work on those combo desk chairs, and we’d just push them together, it worked okay.
You can move the desks. They’re not that heavy.
Sometimes kids will sit at tables instead of desks. When I was in high school, classrooms with tables were two students to a table, so for group projects, we’d turn a pair of them 90 degrees each, so the long sides would be back to back, and then we’d have room for four people.
The ones that didn’t move were in computer labs because cables and such were in the way, or in science classrooms because the tables were these massive steel behemoths. They were heavy, and loud to drag around.
We usually just pushed or picked up and moved the desks or tables together. Some of my school rooms had long tables and separate chairs and some had individual desks.
I’m a high school teacher and my students have always had individual desks with chairs attached. Some other classrooms have larger tables that students sit around (most common in science, art, and some vocational classes). I could have different desks if I wanted to request them but I like what I have.
I have my students in sets of desks where they are clearly grouped but are all facing the same direction. So if they need to work in groups they just either turn and face each other or turn the whole desk (the desks aren’t too heavy) to face each other.
The desks with chairs attached were easy enough to turn and push together for group work. Classes like science had desks for lecture parts and lab tables for lab or group work.
Not all individual desks are attached and immovable. At the high school I attended and worked at, I remember one room that was like this—the mini-theater where some assemblies and meetings were held, but no classes.