From the timetable on the door that is almost never closed, we head on in to the chaos that is my office! Its a constantly evolving space. I am a Specialist Classroom Teacher or SCT in a LARGE Girls High School. I have a small space far from the crowds of Admin and the classrooms where the real stuff goes on... by design.
Its a place people can come to - and do - to sit, to vent, to exchange ideas....to learn hopefully - to coach and be coached and to teach me!
And they do! They drop by, they make appointments, we sometimes schedule to meet to chat - but by far the most interesting moments are those which start with a face in the doorway and the question "Have you got a minute?"
I don't have a classroom - although I teach 3 English classes... I share the space of others. SO...I have to be flexible and I have to be a bit of a travelling roadshow. Any teacher who shares their class knows that you can never bring everything you want and always leave something behind...you are never REALLY totally comfortable with the way the room is set up and you are forever negotiating for a bit of wall space.
So I use ceilings, windows, hang things from wires across the roof space - do whatever I can to gain a foothold here and there.
I travel from class to class with kete and boxes and my laptop and try to teach as piratelike as possible. (Please read Dave Burgess' book Teach Like A Pirate - its a positive affirmation of our profession and a wonderful source of inspiration and self motivation!)
Looking around my office you can see I like to try to walk the talk.
I saved a standing desk from being consigned to storage - it helps my posture - BUT, I have 2 desks - sometimes a girl just needs to sit down! Mini white boards for group work...writing on the window with window chalks - I have plastic 'floaties' on top of the cupboard - we sit or lie on those or hug them when watching movies in year 9! (When was the last time you went to the movies and said - 'Gee I wish there was a school desk in front of me... I just don't feel right in this soft chair!") Same purpose for the floor cushions hiding behind my soft chairs where teachers perch to vent...or settle to discuss...
On the wall are things I use and keep for others to try... Like the 'traffic light' A3 cards that I pin by the classroom door so that students can post notes on about how they are doing as they leave... or the Pasifika or Maori designs on the edgings that - if I had a room - would encircle it...Or the safety posters from Rainbow Youth... or the forms my PCTs need to fill in. The boxes on the floor hold Playdoh, pipe cleaners, coloured ice block sticks, paper goodie bags for writing poems on...scissors, glue, marker pens - I have laminated cards left over from my Te Kotahitanga days - useful for mixing up groups and assigning roles, Ice Block sticks do the same (today colours, tomorrow maybe numbers ...keep 'em guessing) whatever I might need - you just never know when you can mix it up and make the learning about DOING. Writing poems on non 1 dimensional surfaces led us to balloons and paper bags! Good stuff! Books! Teachers can borrow - students can borrow...my 'vase of doom' from which speaking orders are drawn...And the costumes - everyone needs wings and hats and stuff for Pink Shirt Day and the Diversity Picnic and they know I have spares.....Finally back to the start with the 3 Kete and of course umbrellas. We live in Auckland and the school is over a huge site, blocks not connected and few covered walkways - enough said.
I forgot to show the ceiling. It has posters of Batman, of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, of Star Trek... I always put posters on my ceiling - I tell the students it's so when they are bored and their heads fall back they get to see something.... I put up postcard displays for the same reason - a student once told me they remembered ALL of my postcards (but probably not much that I said) that were on the wall behind my desk...grabbed for free from coffee shops and great for teaching about Static Images!
To be fair - when I DID have a classroom it looked a lot like my office but contained more student work.
I have been influenced hugely by my time at Mindlab doing the postgrad course. The result is the boxes and bags that I can grab easily as I rush out of the door. Last year one class brainstormed with Sharpies on Plastic tablecloths from Spotlight - I LOVE SPOTLIGHT!
The important thing about maintaining the momentum - even in my office - is that when people ask for ideas or advice, I can actually SHOW them something. I can give a practical example or hand over my cards, my ice block sticks, my pens, some Playdoh... If it works they can get their own and everyone wins. I am NOT divorced from the classroom - I still teach. I still come up against the same obstacles but Ive made it my mission to find different ways around them.
The biggest challenge is taming the paperwork - thats what the big blue cupboard is for!
The other important part of the room is the space with the 2 chairs - the spot where people can sit and talk. Sometimes it's students, sometimes its staff. But it's out of the way - you can't be seen from the corridor and there's good wifi so we can use laptops!
I don't have a classroom but I LOVE my space!