Setting up the classroom or work area can be really hard. I try to anticipate what will work for my kids. They have not always been able to explain to me what works best for them. Every time I have tried to just figure it out for myself, I get it absolutely wrong and have to start over again.
When we started homeschooling, my kids told me they wanted their own work area. I was absolutely certain that both kids obviously wanted desks facing out the window in opposite corners of the room and set about transforming my bedroom, much to my husband’s horror. But our bedroom had the best window views in the house, so I told him we had to make the sacrifice. He understood… well actually I am not certain because once I set my mind to something the connection between my ears and my brain kind of turns off until I have completed the task I am about.
When we started homeschooling, my kids told me they wanted their own work area. I was absolutely certain that both kids obviously wanted desks facing out the window in opposite corners of the room and set about transforming my bedroom, much to my husband’s horror. But our bedroom had the best window views in the house, so I told him we had to make the sacrifice. He understood… well actually I am not certain because once I set my mind to something the connection between my ears and my brain kind of turns off until I have completed the task I am about.I didn’t realize until I got going that if the desks were angled so that they could look out the windows, the only way I could talk to them, or even see what they were working on, was by standing behind them and looking over their shoulders. This arrangement started OK, but quickly I began to have trouble motivating them and they were unhappy during the day but neither one could tell me why.
It hit me one day that standing behind the kids while they were at their desks was making them nervous. And all I was doing was taking a chance to look out the window (and taking a peek at their work in the process).
I moved the desks so that they faced each other and I sat in a chair on one long end of the desk cluster. This instantly changed both kids’ performance and happiness.
And the Hub was happier too, since that meant the homeschool activity had moved into the dining room. He may have lost a place to eat dinner at the table together as a family, but at least his bedroom no longer looked like a one room schoolhouse. And I took the opportunity to make the bedroom into a happy retreat that is so cozy that it is now a magnet for the kids and dog and cats… Sorry Hub, you still don’t have a quiet place to hang out.
It was an easily fixable mistake. But amazingly, I manage to find a way to make a mistake like that every year!
