Liam Cerfoglio

Many teachers use seating charts due to convenience, but the well-being of the students never seems to be considered in how the chart is created.
A lot of teachers also complain about their classes not participating or interacting in the classroom. A solution to that would be letting students choose where they would like to sit, as many people will interact and talk more when around individuals that are familiar to them. The chosen seats can then be written down as a seating chart to help teachers learn names and for substitute teachers.
With teacher-assigned seating charts, students lack a sense of comfort. For example, a student could get seated next to someone they are not comfortable around, and could be too shy to tell the teacher. Now the student is miserable and will only dread the class.
According to The National Library of Medicine, “Offering students choices seems to be ethically responsible and may be an important component of a comprehensive classroom management system.” Students, especially high schoolers, deserve to have a choice in their seating arrangements. They are young adults, and choosing the environment they want to work in is huge for developing independence.
If a student picks a seat where they are not working efficiently, then it would make sense for those students to be reassigned a seat by the teacher. But it is not fair to make everyone have a seating chart because of a few students’ actions.
Teachers do not always understand the complexities of social dynamics between students. Even in the real world there are social circles. Now of course it is good to learn how to talk to people even when one does not particularly care for the person; however, students do that enough at school when they are assigned to different groups and just in day-to-day life. Some personalities just simply do not mesh.
Letting students choose their seats gives them some freedom and comfort at school. It will make the teachers’ lives much easier when they have a happy and participating class.