Temperament and Student Seating Arrangements

In December of 2005 I began an experiment designed to provide a resource for those interested in utilizing temperament (the essence of a persons being) to better guide, teach, work with, supervise and relate to other people. The information was well and widely received. However, technical difficulties led to the cease of publications and electronically archived material. This new location is my attempt to reconstruct the work from my notes and recollections. I hope you find it useful.

The following is a recreation of one of the first and most well received articles.

Upon entering most modern elementary classrooms your initial visual and auditory image may be that you have happened upon a collection of randomly scattered islands. The populations of these islands seem to be desperately competing with each other and with the other island inhabitants for the opportunity to be heard. And, oddly, the topics upon which they wish to be heard about seem to have no commonality of subject.

Moving between and among these “islands” is the classroom teacher, who appears nothing so much as a messenger poling a sampan between the warring peoples in an effort to mollify and maintain some small semblance of positive direction among the populace.

For one with a mind who seeks an efficient purposeful order, it can be a disconcerting experience, to say the least.

How this arrangement came to be and other possible arrangements is the topic of this article.

Although I know of no definitive statement that such is true, it appears that original arrangement of student seating in this country may have had to do with the necessity of utilizing the natural light which came in through the large side windows of early schools. Therefore, the logical solution was to place the desks in rows to each side of the room to best capitalize on the available natural light.

For many years this continued to be the norm. Even after the introduction of artificial lighting (i.e. electricity) to the schools and classrooms this layout continued to serve well.

Then, somewhere around the early 1900’s John Dewey, an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer arrived on the scene. For Dewey, it was vitally important that education not be the teaching of fact, but that the skills and knowledge which students learned be integrated fully into their lives as persons, citizens and human beings.

Others soon expounded upon his beliefs to postulate that since students had, in the past, been instructed in rote memorization of facts in desks in rows that the desks and rows must be changed as well as the curriculum. It seems like an odd stretch of logic, I know, but still it was the case.

So, out with the neatly ordered columns and rows of desks and in with just about any other classroom configuration you can imagine.

Eventually, in elementary school, this evolved into the island formation described above. Keep in mind that this formation is not universally in place beyond elementary classrooms. By and large, most middle schools, high schools and institutions of higher learning have maintained the column and row configuration, ostensibly for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness.

To date, the three most common models you will encounter are the row and column model, the island model and the horseshoe or double horseshoe model. However, coming onto the scene is another known as the work/learning station/center model.

First, the most familiar of the three, is the row and column model which is illustrated as follows:

The largest complaint with this model was that the teacher (represented by the larger box) by nature of the model, spent more time interacting with the students in the front rows and the rows down the middle. Therefore, those students achieved at a higher level than the remainder of the class.

This model is the favorite of the order and structure loving student. That temperament appreciates and enjoys the predictability and dependability of this model as it lends itself to the success of the auditory learner who seeks out the seat which provides the best position to hear and observe the instructor. These students are auditory learners and prefer to work independently. They often find more relaxed environments to be distracting and even to detract from the content.

The second model examined is that of the island model.

The problems reported with this model include increased off task behavior, increased noise level in the classroom, decreased productivity as far as the amount of work completed by the students and a large increase in the number of disciplinary and behavior related incidents. However, there was a heightened level of communication among the students.

Students identified as sanguine, or highly social prefer this seating as it provides opportunity for interaction. Down sides of this model area increased off task behavior and room volume. It is useful for group projects.

The third model is that known as the horseshoe or double horseshoe.

The horseshoe model is a favorite when both student-student and student-teacher interaction are important to the learning in the class. The model is also conducive to situations in which the teacher is required to work with students closely both as individuals and as members of a group. This is especially effective if the students sit facing the teacher during initial instruction then the innermost “horseshoe” members move their desks together with the two members of the outer horseshoe during group work.

Initially, this might appear to be a great loss of time during the movements of the desks. However, studies indicate (Hurt, Scott, and McCroskey) a span of less than 90 seconds for the needed adjustments.

The data is solid and for the most part, speaks for itself. The most efficient and effective of the three models examined is the “horseshoe” model. It yields itself equally well to teacher focused operation, which is paramount for initial instruction and it facilitates group interaction when used in the cooperative learning configuration.

The model typically results in higher performance on the part of the students as well as lowering the incidents of behavior related difficulties in the classroom. Most temperament types do well with this model.

The final configuration is the work station model. In this arrange the perimeter of the room is arranged as work stations. In center of the room is devoted to tables or rows for initial and reinforcement instruction. After the teacher introduces and models the content students disperse to the work stations to complete the learning activities. At the end of the learning experience the students return to the central area for recap and enhancement.