Unless administration is up for a game of hide and go seek, I need my desk so I have a place for them to find my plan book. It's also a nifty place for my empty coffee cups, and piles of inane administrative memos.
I need a place for my computer and some space next to it for all the piles of papers. I'd like this to be located somewhere in the back. As it is, I live my life by the overhead and up and down the aisles of kid seats.
Before we moved to this building, I had just gotten rid of my teacher desk. Here and now, we have these huge L-shaped monsters directly under the (unusable) wall-mounted TVs and smack in the front of the room. We're not allowed to move them -- something about the wiring needed to connect the computers to the (unusable) TVs. I rotated my kid desks 90 degrees so that my monster desk is in the back anyway.
So there.
This is dum, dum, dum.
This would be a good moment for the teacher unions to point out that a huge part of our job happens outside teaching hours, doing various kinds of paperwork. That's why the desks are there, not so that we can sit behind them during class--who's done that in the last 20 years?
As for the school that had a common office for teachers--I wish! My school doesn't have enough room for each teacher to have his or her own classroom, let alone office space.
I carry two big baqs full of stuff from room to room, plus my coat in cold weather because I teach in a trailer. I need the desk to put things on. As for using the desk for anything else? IMPOSSIBLE. I never sit while teaching and even when I give an exam I am constantly moving around the room. The room is always in use so even doing prep work or marking tests is impossible at this desk. I suppose a big bench would serve me just as well.
No desk? No desk?? Why ... what object will I hide behind when the buckshot tears through the room? What wooden object will I remove Post-It notes and pens and Hand Sanitizer from? Where else can I look to see pictures of the instructor with his/her family and/or children and/or cats, so I actually know (a.) what the person I'm subbing for actually looks like and (b.) that the person I'm subbing for is actually a human being with a life outside the school?
I agree it's good to have a large object to hide under.
I like many need my desk for the placement of important paperwork (plans, attendance and other files) that gets lost in the other piles of paperwork.
I use a round table for conferences and usually mark papers on that table too.
I vote "Yeah for desks!"
What I want to know is why phys ed teachers have those offices with each gym teacher getting desks...in my very overcrowded high school (with loads of trailers), there are two phys ed offices--one for male teacher and one for female teachers and they have tons of desks. I teach history and our cramped little office has no desks and only enough room for maybe five teachers to sit--we have about 40 teachers in our department....
I love the new look of your website! i havent visited for a while been bogged down with lesson planning & crazy social life.
I can definitely live without a desk. At my school there's no space, we all share classrooms & the principal doesnt even have an office she sits in the hallway & using the photocopy room. The students sit at tables. I've had my rude awakening to NY! I do need a shelf or something to put my paperwork on, as well as a swingy chair to sit in at the end of the extended day. Actually a couch to sleep in during lunch would be best!
Thanks for the kind words, A.
I love my desk. I put all my important papers on it. I talk to my students one-on-one across my desk to ensure no physical contact. Finally, my room is mine and my desk comes with draws and a key that is mine, all mine!
I agree with schoolgal here.
nyc educator;
By the way I noticed that you and pissedoffteacher have something in common. You both teach in the trailers! Any other similarities?
We both have lawn chairs and big old dogs tied up outside. If you come to visit, better bring 'em a treat.
This year, I moved my desk to the back because it was the best way to make space for my kids. And now, my desk is part of the classroom library- there are several book baskets on it and no space for me to work. I find that I prefer to have a student double desk at the front, because I am a slob and keeping a small space neat is easier. I do my one-on-one conferences there, and keep lessons, handouts, work to return, etc.
The other teachers who teach my class hate that I have this student desk in the front, especially the math teacher, but another reason my desk is shoved in the back is so that she can have space for her math center.
No desk for me. Actually I've got two -- one is just large enough to hold my computer (where I take roll, create handouts, enter grades, etc.), and the other just holds a bunch of junk, and I think I'd be better off without it.
When it comes to teaching or conferencing I sit at or on the students' desks. When it comes to grading papers I use a student desk or my couch at home.
By the way, love the redesign!
Thanks. It's very cool that you have a computer. We have plug-in and wi-fi access, have had it for years, but they neglected to provide actual computers.
My desk is solely for storage. I have a stool for actual perching. Most grading I spread out on a table in the lounge or media center--or, more likely, the sofa at home. Possibly on student desks.
If I lost my desk, I'd simply have to get a table and more little plastic Wal-Mart shelves. That might even work better, come to think of it...
Same here. The reflective teacher must be teachingin a very special school.
I don't have a desk, however, the large deep drawer makes a fab compost bin.
I wish I had a trailer. Then, I could barbeque and hold classes outside during good weather.
We have computers [aka door stops] in our rooms, but no wifi/wireless. I'm going to offer it to the teacher next door. If she doesn't want it, you can have it nyceducator.
I had an overhead. I love them. But, I burned out the bulb and the admin won't buy more. I think we have only two that work; so we pass them around when we have a formal observation.
I got rid of my desk my second year. I have a small computer cart that my computer sits on, and I have a large table in the back of my room that normally students sit at, but that I will use on occasion when I spread out. Otherwise, I don't bother with a desk--it's just one more surface for me to clutter. When I conference with students, they pull a chair right up next to mine--works just fine.
I'm in a *tiny* classroom anyway (one of the smallest in the school) so it was nice get rid of something else that took up space. Although almost everyone that comes in my room for the first time inevitably asks for their first question, "umm, where's your desk?" 
Oh, for all the "stuff" that normally collects in desk drawer, I have a plastic file cart next to my desk with drawers in it that holds my printer, and I keep all desk supplies in that. For writing, I either pull up a student desk or use a clipboard.
Boy, I wish I had a computer in my classroom. I'll probably be dead by the time they move it in, and it'll probably be obsolete by the time they deliver it.
The way I see it, I'm lucky to have a pen.
I have a computer desk AND a teacher desk.
This is because I teach in a private school. 
My teacher desk is used to mostly hold: Various drawings the children make for me. Odd objects found on the floor. Useless memos from Admin. Useless memos from parents. Old coffee mugs. A dead plant. Not my gradebook, not my planbook, and not attendance slips because those are all on the computer, which means that most of the time, I cannot access them at all.
We were bored one day and actually looked through a teacher desk and found test papers from 1969. Can you believe that they were still unmarked?
I soooooo want to take a tour of classrooms now!
I don't think I could live well without my desk. The top of my desk is pretty much taken up with my computer and printer, so I have a small table next to it (forming an almost "L") for an assortment of important things like the In-box, my curriculum/lessons binders, textbooks, 20 To-do lists, and a big-ass stack of "important things" collected from my mail box. (It sits precariously close to the edge, where it might accidently fall into the trash can.) Oh, and a little table and cubby hole would not hold all the stuff I have. I have book shelves, wardrobes, and filing cabinets pretty well STUFFED.
I can B & M about teaching at my school sometimes, but after reading some of these comments--especially poor you, NYC--I should be thankful to have such nice things in my classroom. I won't speak anymore of it lest you'll all start hating me. >
happychyck:
We can never hate you and believe it or not we probably make more than you, even if we don't have computers on our desk. In fact nyc educator has his own bathroom in his classroom where he can flush down all the useless memos given to him by the administration.
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