In his book The First Days of School, Harry Wong writes “if you do not structure your classroom, your classroom will structure you.” While the context of his comment is introductory procedures, it begs the question of how much must be structured on the first day.
I have been lucky enough to be paired with a creative, risk-taking teacher who was excited to find a way to implement design thinking in her classroom. After some discussion and planning, we were looking forward to using the first week of school for our fifth graders to design their classroom. Using the inspiration from the design thinking presentation during inservice the previous week, we decided to give the students total control in the design process and creation of their learning space. The only catch to this plan? We had to give up the typical structure of the first day of school. While at first this thought was daunting, I became more comfortable with the idea of handing the power over to the students, as time progressed.
As of today, the design process is complete and we have a functioning classroom that exceeded my expectations! As I think back on the process and the steps we as a class took to complete the designs, I can only think about how what we did during the first week of school defied Harry Wong’s statement on structure. On our first day, there was a complete lack of structure in the classroom. Yes, we were clearly the teachers and the students respected the typical rules of the classroom. However, this was a result of the students being accustomed to the school culture, not an awareness of expectations set forth on the first day of school (like Wong insists we do on the first day). And yet, despite all the chaos and absence of script, our students flourished in the design process. (See their success and our journey here!)
While the first day (and week) of school was a blur, I am grateful for the lessons I have learned. I am looking forward to my next first day of school and am comforted by the fact that there is indeed safety outside of structure.
As of today, the design process is complete and we have a functioning classroom that exceeded my expectations! As I think back on the process and the steps we as a class took to complete the designs, I can only think about how what we did during the first week of school defied Harry Wong’s statement on structure. On our first day, there was a complete lack of structure in the classroom. Yes, we were clearly the teachers and the students respected the typical rules of the classroom. However, this was a result of the students being accustomed to the school culture, not an awareness of expectations set forth on the first day of school (like Wong insists we do on the first day). And yet, despite all the chaos and absence of script, our students flourished in the design process. (See their success and our journey here!)
While the first day (and week) of school was a blur, I am grateful for the lessons I have learned. I am looking forward to my next first day of school and am comforted by the fact that there is indeed safety outside of structure.