The teacher may have chosen this classroom management strategy or it may have been dictated.
I'm familiar with schools experimenting with various classroom seating (traditional chairs, cubes, balls, stools, etc) and configurations (individual desks, trapezoid tables, etc).
I'm also familiar with schools collecting social-emotional information on students, provided by other students. For example: Prior to assigning seats, the teacher may have each student complete a survey asking such questions as:
- Up to three students I would like to sit near
- Up to three students I would NOT like to sit near
This information can be used to simply create the seating chart but can also be used to identify kids who may be lonely or left out at the moment, and those who may be leaders, bullies, or in cliques at the moment.
Survey responses can also be stored for future uses in research and statistics. For example:
- Kids who were "popular" in 2nd grade were more likely to _ fill - in - the - blank _ 10, 15, 20 years later.
- Kids who were "loners" in 2nd grade were more likely to _ fill - in - the - blank _ 10, 15, 20 years later.
