Standing vs. Sitting and Where?

        I have thought about just this lately.   Does sitting vs. standing matter?  Where we stand.  Does it matter with regards to student achievement? I believe it does.  Our presence and proximity to students is important.  I can remember back to middle school in Logansport at Columbia Middle School and I think about my thoughts as a 12 or 13 year old student.  I know that I picked up on these things.  I always thought that those who just sat their at their desks never cared and were lazy and I was 12 or 13 years old.  Was I correct?  Probably not but those were my thoughts.  Now I am sure I could find research that supports my own research but I think it is about common sense.  You cannot fool students, they pick up on these things and they pick up on the authenticity of our actions.  Our actions speak volumes about who we are and the culture that we have here at Lincoln.  Being up and about in the classroom allows for many benefits to student learning: we can see visible learning, check in with students having difficulty, listen to student conversations, clarify misconceptions,  and ask higher level questions.  All of these benefits help us assure that learning is happening and that students are constructing meaning from our lessons. These things will help student achievement.  Most of all though,  standing and moving says to our students that we care and their learning is important.
         Last week I was able to visit the Steelcase company in Grand Rapids.  The experience was profound.  It has not been often during my teaching career that I have been able to experience the corporate world, so what I saw was a learning experience.  Steelcase makes furniture for schools and they spent a lot of time sharing their research.  They also work with schools to design learning spaces.  One thing that they talked about was where teachers teach from.  In their designed classrooms there is no front of the class, teachers teach from everywhere.  There are no teacher desks because teachers facilitate learning and it is best done with the students, along side students.  Are we sitting or standing?  Is there a front of our classrooms?  Something to think about and remember common sense is appreciated by students.