Squads vs.
Circles
What Type of
Teacher are you? Are you circle or square?
by
Patty Grieman
Every year for the
last eight and a half years, I happily have lined my
students up in squads.
These neat rows of six made me happy. Some would
say that I was anal
about my squads.
The squads had to
be neat, students had to be in order. My classes lined up
like this every
day every year for eight and a half years, until one day,
when I read an article
in this very publication titled “Talking Circles.” I
started thinking
about the power of this circle. I was thinking about how
easy it was for
students to “hide” in squads. They could just sit there
every day and not
talk to anyone. All they had to do was look at the back
of someone’s head.
I thought about how sad it was that some students would
never have to make
a connection with anyone. I thought that in a circle,
students would have
to make eye contact with others and that maybe they
might make a connection
with someone. I felt this was particularily
important in my
freshman classes where everything is new and someone may be
reaching out for
someone, anyone to a connect with.
So, second semester,
I did the unthinkable...I lined my classes up in a
circle. Other
teachers looked at me like I was crazy. I thought they might
be right, but I
was going to try it anyway. Attendance wasn’t as easy, I
couldn’t just look
down the row and see if the third person was absent.
Instead, I found
myself learning the students’ names faster and also that
the students on
either side of an absent student were now responsible for
reporting that their
neighbor was gone. Soon, I found the students actually
caring about the
people who were gone.
“I wonder what happened
to Jenny, she hasn’t been here in two days,” Gina
said. I found
the class having actual conversations about what was going on
in their lives and
everyone cared.
More and more we
came to love our circle. It was safe. It was a touchpoint
in the day.
For weeks, girls were happily carrying on conversations about
the day, or a dance,
or class...and what I noticed is that no one was
“hiding.”
Everyone was included in our circle.
Then one day out
of the blue, I announced to my classes that we were going
to begin to line
up a different way. I started to line them up in my former
beloved squads,which
I found to be completely revolting as I was doing it.
It made me upset
to put them there and their faces also showed that they
were as upset as
I was. But, I was going to let them experience the squads
to see how they
liked (or disliked) it. “Ms. G, what did we do wrong?” Sam
asked. Then
her faced squished up as if she just ate a lemon. “Ms. G, I
don’t like this!
I want our circle back.” Soon others were chiming in
wanting to know
what happened, what they did wrong, and why were we lining
up like this?
You would have thought I asked them to do some dreaded
punishment.
They were really upset, and I found myself also hating the
squads. But
I knew it was only for this one day. I told the class that I
wanted them to write
about how they felt about the squads and how they felt
about the circle.
The next day as they
walked into class, they nervously asked, “Do we have to
line up in squads
today?” “No, we can go back to the circle,” I replied.
You would have thought
that they won the lottery, they were so happy. I
read their reviews
and many said they hated the squads.
Actually, that was
the overwhelming majority feeling towards the squads.
But what I found
the most interesting is the one girl who said she liked the
squads. This
girl’s last name begins with “Z” and I assume she has been at
the back of the
class at the end of rows for most of her life. She said
that she liked the
squads because she didn’t have to talk to anyone and she
didn’t have to look
at anyone. This really bothered me because I have
talked with this
girl many times and never got the impression that she felt
that way.
I wondered if this was the first time she had actually made
connections with
other people not in her direct social circle. I wondered
what an impact this
little circle has now made on this young girl’s life.
She is well liked
by the students in class, and she is very friendly. I
wonder if she would
have been different if we had lined up in squads.
I wonder now every
day what other little things I could do to make a
difference in just
one person’s life. That is, after all, what education is
all about.
Little things do make a difference.
Patty Grieman
11501 S. Nashville
Worth, IL 60482
708.218.3813
E-mail: pgrieman@olchs.org
The
Spring 2003 edition of The Ripple Effect will be published and available
only on this Wesite.
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