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Welcome to my classroom! Yep, this is what teachers normally encounter at the start of each year. We're excellent furniture movers, and I spent this fine Friday trying to arrange it according to #bced guidelines. 1/11
I started by pulling the big grey table across the room, then pushed the teacher desk against the wall. I then taped out two, 2M teacher zones around them, using the chair as the centre point. 2/11
Two teacher zones? Why, yes. I'll be sharing my room with another teacher Q1, and she needs a home base, too. But we also need to stay distanced from each other, and avoid sharing supplies as much as we can. 3/11
But isn't a 2M buffer excessive when teachers don't need to distance from their cohorts? No. Because TOCs DO need to stay 2M from the students, and we need to be set up in anticipation of having a TOC in. Plus, the learning group and distance guidelines are contradictory. 4/11
Cohorts don't have to distance from one another, and teachers are considered part of cohorts, but we can also teach in multiple cohorts, and people in different cohorts have to stay distanced, so I guess that means we do actually have to distance? Anyway. 2M teacher zones. 5/11
But students only need to be 1M apart if they're in rows! So I set my desks 1M apart, and could fit 20. That won't work when I average 28 students per class. 6/11
So maybe it's not 1M between desks that we need. Maybe it's 1M between chairs, assuming the students will never slouch, lean, or otherwise lessen the space between them and the person on the chair next to them. 7/11
In this portable classroom -- which is slightly larger than some in-school rooms, and larger than portables with separate cloakrooms -- I could fit 26 students with 1M between chairs (50cm between desks). 9/11
Clearly the issue is that second teacher zone, right? I should remove some furniture? Nope. The zones are set up where there is little or no sightline to the board. I could fit only two more desks if I were to remove the extra table, bringing the total to 28. 10/11
"But that's great, Ms. MacKenzie! You average 28 students per class!"
Well, yes. But that's the middle ground. Fitting 28 desks with the chairs 1M apart doesn't help my class of 29, nor my class of 32. 11/11
Well, yes. But that's the middle ground. Fitting 28 desks with the chairs 1M apart doesn't help my class of 29, nor my class of 32. 11/11
All of this to say that this is what a classroom looks like. I've tried to set it up according to the guidelines, using 2M for TOCs, and 1M for students when desks are in rows. But in a real classroom, with actual class sizes, the guidelines don't work. 12/12 #bced
