Prologue:
When I got hired, my site had just gone through WASC and a part of the expectations were PLCs or Professional Learning Communities. I’m not sure why, but they said it was “…imperative that the site explore [PLCs]”. I wasn’t here before WASC, but it could be that the site was not growing as a community and they maybe saw a large wedge between our faculty. That’s just from my first-hand experience and third-party perspective coming to this school.
Back in 2018, I joined a few PLCs because they sounded like opportunities for me to grow. I joined the ASB one because of my high school student life. But as a new teacher, I was also a part of another meeting group, basically a PLC. Then my co-worker homies and I were also doing research to build a Social Justice program at our school.
The district gave us feedback and said we had to rename our program, which is now known as the Public Health Academy. At the time, we didn’t have the credentials to call ourselves an academy, so we applied for the district’s Superintendent’s Innovation Fellowship grant and was awarded $200,000 to redesign our classrooms and design our program.
Fall 2022:
It’s been pretty exciting to work with furniture that feels futuristic. It’s great to see that students can feel comfortable but also get to work if they need to.
For an overview/breakdown of my interior design choices, check out the vlog I made on my classroom upgrade:
It’s been long overdue. And I wish that this furniture came in Spring 2020 with my original students. Many of them see my room through the vlog and wish they could have experienced their fond memories with such an upgraded and cooler classroom.
Even many of my most recent students, who are now seniors. They look into the room with envy as anyone would. Many of those, c/o 2023, have become my TA (teacher’s aid) this year. Many of which I asked for their opinions on the room’s layout. From the initial vlog, there has been a lot of changes to create better separation of space for each and every student.
At the start of the school year, with my open seating policy, the “chilled out corner” was monopolized by students who primarily didn’t do their work. When I was a quiet-shy Asian kid, I wouldn’t have the courage to ask someone if I could even sit next to them with the anxiety of a “No” or being bullied. My TAs felt similar, and decided to redesign the couch area to be a combination for comfort and study.
They also moved the “potted plant chairs” to the nook where the Promethean (that 85″ TV you see in the vlog) was and created a smaller isolated group area by the window.
Another update from the vlog is that my bulletin boards were replaced with whiteboards. So now I have whiteboards on both sides of the room. This allows for my high wooden table scholars to have access to a whiteboard when it’s time for a whiteboard-oriented activity.
The TAs rearranged their table setting to accommodate for my student teachers and themselves. Really opening up space in the classroom for us to spread out the whiteboard tables and seating arrangement.
Epilogue:
The most rewarding part was seeing student’s reactions as they came into the classroom. They were shocked how different it looked, yet it was quite the same. They were very vocal about how much more they liked the room. And students felt the new spaces were accessible. And I saw an increase in productivity.
If I ever find the time, maybe I’ll take another shot at recording another vlog of the current classroom set up. There’s limitless ideas to the arrangement of my new classroom.
Balasbas Says 