Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

We human beings are such creatures of habit, and we get rather miffed when our ruts are plowed over or filled in.

Last Friday, my school had its conferences between parents and their children's advisors. I turned out to have a good deal of free time between one parent and another, and I used the time to complete the clean-out of the things my predecessor left behind and rearrange the classroom. You see, I had never been entirely satisfied with the organization of the classroom. My classroom was organized with desks in a circle, and I was happy with that arrangement and the way it fostered discussion and relative equality between my students. My classroom is relatively small, and the result of this is that to make the circle accomodate all of my students, I had to block off a number of things, including some bookshelves and my whiteboard. The bookshelves I can live without and even, for that matter, the whiteboard to a large extent, but I knew that I would want to use it, particularly with my juniors, in the weeks to come, so I found a solution. I moved my desk over in front of the white board and put desks over in the corner where my desk had been. It works pretty well.

And freaks my students out. They hated the change; one girl even sat on the floor in front of my desk, because that was roughly where her desk had been. It's kind of funny to see them so worked up about something so minor, since there's nothing inherently wrong with the arrangement--quite the contrary, from my perspective. The issue is change. If the room had always been set up this way, no big deal, but it wasn't, so big deal. 

We're a funny animal, we people are. 

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