I had been using centers in my kindergarten classes for quite a while. I set up a specific activity for the students at each center, modeled the activities for them, and provided all the materials they would need at each center. The idea was for them to do the activity close to the way I had done it.

It occurred to me that maybe they didn’t want to do it my way every time!

Now that I am applying the Responsive Classroom approaches to classroom organization, everything is different. Children work independently or with partners. At the end of the work period, we have a sharing time, and we enjoy the wide variety of projects we have been working on.

I made two important changes. First, I organized my classroom to promote independence and responsibility. Second, the projects I designed were more open-ended, and they are now largely designed by the children. If I hadn’t taken the first step – organizing the environment – the students would not have been able to move to a high level of self-directed learning. In order for the children to become independent, I had to make their materials and their work space totally accessible and useful to them.

Classroom organization
I thought about the space in my classroom. How much could fit into the room without overwhelming the children? If they are surrounded by too much stuff, they try to do everything, and the quality of their work suffers. I found out, for example, in publishing their writing, that the less materials they had to make a cover, and the simpler the materials were, the more fully they used them. So now we have no wallpaper books or pre-made books or fancy papers. We simply have materials with which they can print letters and draw pictures, and they make their own original covers, fully exploiting the materials. I also leave things out for a longer time so they will use them more extensively.

Space and traffic
To arrange the space to suit the children’s needs, I had to look to see what was next. If students are packed in too close to one another, they have conflicts. Did I have enough room around tables so the students didn’t bump into each other as they sat down and stood up? Now we have less furniture.

And the children now come up with their own ideas for how we can use and share space. They do what feels comfortable. Since most of my floor area is open now, when children want more room, they take their work to the rug area and work there.

This article first appeared in Origins: A Newsletter for Educators, Spring 1998