Picasso vs. Da Vinci

As a substitute, I get to experience different learning environments. So far this week, I've been to two familiar but polar opposite schools. 

One has pretty much done away with desks and allows the children to sit where they choose in the room to do their work. There are small couches, stools and a few tables, pillows, lap-desks, etc. It's a very unstructured space. The teachers and principal at that school are quite easy going and not particular about following anything to the letter.

The school I worked in today is super structured, with each child having their own spot and expected to sit or stand up straight at all times with their eyes on you like a robot. When they are at an assembly lining up they are expected to be perfectly behaved, with not even a whisper or looking in another direction. They are so particular at that school down to the fact that the principal will critique the way a child greets him if he is unsatisfied, and he will insist they repeat doing it until perfect. 

There are pluses and minuses for me and for the kids in both settings. The unstructured setting has fewer rules for me, but it also means I have less to enforce with the kids, which can make getting them all on the same page difficult some times. If I'm asking them to do something in an orderly way and they are not used to it, they just stare at me blankly. There is not the expectation of my class looking perfect when someone walks in. They want to see the kids engaged and working, but that could mean the kids are talking to each other and sitting stretched out comfortably on the floor. At the very structured school, if someone walks in and the room is not in perfect order and silent, even if the kids are doing their work, you get an instant shame glance and the kids are reprimanded. The plus is that, since I know the structure and correct language, if I say certain things to the kids at any class in the school, they are likely to respond and do what I say. Since I know the reward system, I know what carrots are available to dangle in front of them. There is continuity among the staff interactions with students.

There is no right way to structure the school setting, and I think the "perfect" one would have a mixture of structure and un-structured space and time. I enjoy going back and forth between different worlds, but it does kind of boggle my brain sometimes.