“I’d write my name, Charlie, and then I could sit in it whenever I wanted.”

What does democracy look like in a classroom?
How do children and adults have voice in our Studio Red community?
How do we name challenges and solve problems?
How do we construct the agreements we follow in our studio?

These past few weeks there has been some amazing chair building developing on our large rug.  A growing small group of children have been bringing chairs from across the classroom to construct BIG.  After using the blocks to build ships they could enter, these children envisioned new ways to use a chair for the same purpose.  This tool for sitting expanded to become a tool for building — a tool that could be flipped this way and that, creating spaces to hide and levers to pull.  What fun!

Perhaps as you can guess, we observed some conflicts arise from this chair play.  Over time, all the chairs would eventually end up on the rug.  We watched as the children negotiated the use of this communal tool.  We teachers did establish two rules to facilitate this negotiation:

(1) If a child needs a chair to sit, those building with them had to give one away.

(2) We would keep all four metal chairs at the snack table.

As we continued to watch this problem solving take place, we wondered: Does everyone have voice? Are the children hearing all perspectives? Is everyone satisfied with these agreements and the continual chair negotiation?

We wondered what might happen if we shared back our observations with the whole group.  Children engage in dialogue and create agreements throughout the day.  Could the large group conversation create an opportunity to reflect on their developing understandings?   Could one conversation help us all create a common understanding?  We invited a community conversation about this chair play.  Though we didn’t name a problem, the children quickly began problem-solving.

Emily and I have noticed some really awesome chair building that has been happening in our block space. We have also noticed other play spaces then become empty of chairs. We were wondering about that.

Drawing people could always get at least ten chairs. At least ten chairs in the studio and the rest in the block area so ten could be left over there.
Beatrice​
Or we could just have one chair. Everybody in the class could have one chair and do whatever they want with it and write your name on it. On a piece of tape.
Beatrice
Write your name on it?
Charlie​
With a sharpie.
Ryan
Yeah. That's a good idea, Bea.
Lyla
What's your thinking behind that, Bea? How come?
Lauri
Cuz you know it's your chair. Charlie's chair forever! Hah!
Charlie
I'd write my name, Charlie, and then I could sit in it whenever I wanted. NO ONE could ever sit in it.
Charlie
And you could only ever sit in your chair and you could do whatever you want with your chair. But you couldn't scribble on your chair or break your chair.
Beatrice
Yeah!
Some children
No!
Other children
And you're not allowed to use other people's chairs unless you ask and they say yes.
Lyla
I have an idea.
Charlie
If someone needs a chair from here you do not have an option, you have to give it to them. Maybe, perhaps when they're done they could give it back to them.
Arya
Let's do a vote for that.
Graeme
But if it's your chair and you let someone use it and then you wanted it back then the person who's using it would have to give it back.
Beatrice
I know that happened yesterday when Charlotte and Birdie came to the block area and they asked for a chair. I am wondering how that worked.
Lauri
Brooke taked all the chairs. She didn't give any away.
Charlie
No, no, no. I took one chair of Jane's away and then I gave that to Charlotte.
Brooke
[It went] Not good. Because Chester said we couldn't have a chair.
Charlotte
Cuz Chester stopped us. He said no, no, no, you can't take these and he was blocking us.
Birdie
But then Brooke gave two chairs, one to Charlotte and one to Birdie, but Chester said no.
Arya
Chester grabbed it from me.
Charlotte
They both grabbed it from us and I was like, "Hey, you just grabbed that our of our hands."
Birdie
It sounds like grabbing chairs was a problem.
Emily
Maybe we should just stop playing with the chairs and just use them for sitting
Beatrice
Yeah, because at clean up time we have to go running around finding all those little brown pieces (rubber chair leg caps).
Charlotte
What if everybody gets a chair in drawing. You can label with your name. You have to have a chair at snack and it has to have your name on it. Everybody gets a label at snack, everybody gets a label in drawing, everybody gets a label in clay.
Charlie
Charlie, we don't have enough chairs, dude.
Arya
Charlie is reminding me of an agreement that Lauri and I made, that the snack chairs have to stay at the snack table. Are there any other spaces that we like to have chairs?
Emily
Drawing! Drawing! Drawing, drawing, drawing!
Children
And over there! The mirror.
Chester
And the kitchen! And snack! Snack! Snack!
Children
I think we want chairs everywhere.
Lyla
And not at the easel cuz then we'll get paint on them and then we'll sit on them and get paint on us.
Charlotte
Click Here
Why don't we just buy a million chairs and put them everywhere?!
Lyla
Why don't we just, these guys could have a couple chairs and we could have a couple chairs and someones could have one with chair and someones could be without chairs like a standing, and ones with sitting.
Sevi
Or when you make a choice the teacher could give you a chair. If you want one you could say, "Could I please have a chair?" Just one, and you would just get one from the teacher.
Beatrice
We need two to make our ship.
Chester
Yeah, we need two to make our ship though.
Brooke
At least two. At least three.
Graeme
Two is the most to make a ship. For every person. Well maybe five chairs in the block area.
Beatrice
I choose all Bea's ideas.
Graeme
Well there could be an even about here and and even amount here. So there could be ten here and ten there.
Arya
We have a group of sixteen children and about six ideas. How could we come up with one idea together?
Emily
We could do a close your eyes vote and whoever has the most votes, that's the idea we'll do.
Arya
We could just do whoever said that idea then we could raise our hand. Like if someone voted for Bea, then a lot of people did, then...
Graeme
But I had like ten hundred ideas.
Beatrice
What about if the teacher's decide what Bea one we are going to do?
Charlie
I don't know if I even remember all the options. I wonder if someone could write down all the ideas.
Emily
If we do the vote now, it will take time and we want to make choices. If volunteers write down the ideas, we could then take a vote at the end of our morning together. Is there someone willing to write down our ideas?
Lauri
Previous slide
Next slide

Arya and Lyla volunteered to help write down all the ideas so that we could take a vote.

We can’t remember all the ideas. We have two of Bea’s ideas and one of Arya’s ideas. Lyla

Charlie, did you want to add an idea from the six ideas we had this morning? Arya

Taking the vote.