CLASSROOM WALLS CAUSE THE RISE AND FALL

When students walk into a room, one of the first things they see is what decor their teachers have put on their wall. Some classes might have art from students on their walls or maybe even some sports memorabilia from high school or college. Others, on the other hand, have no decorations: their walls are completely bare.

Many teachers do take into consideration what their classrooms look like in order to benefit their students.

“I want them to feel relaxed, so I use soft lighting, not to encourage sleepiness but to give a sense of comfort and safety to the mind and body.” Ms. Zier said. Students tend to be more relaxed with dimmed lighting, but bright lighting can help them stay awake in class to not fall asleep.

Decorated walls can benefit students learning while bare walls may be a detriment to it.

“I would be less motivated to do my best, but with the more decorations, the better I can work,” Sophomore Espen Zink said. Decorations in a classroom can help engage students in their work as well. Senior Justice Bennet mentions how it is just more calming for them: if their eyes get too tired from staring at a computer, they can look at the things around the classroom. Students having things in the room to look at while they are on the brink of falling asleep can actually wake their brains up, and they will be more motivated to get through the day. If students were in classes with bare walls, they would be falling asleep and would lose their motivation to get through the day.

While some decorations in a class are beneficial, if they are too extravagant, they may become a problem for students. They may feel incredibly overstimulated, leading them to lose focus on the task at hand.

“Sometimes I get distracted because I’m looking around,” Sophomore Micheal Castro said. Teachers take into consideration that some things may be too much for a classroom environment. English teacher Mrs. Taglia mentions how she thinks about her students when she chooses what goes in her room.  She likes to make it comfortable while keeping distractions to a minimum.

Teachers at the start of every school year take their time to make their classrooms look nice. Many teachers put up things from when they went to school or pictures of their families. Usually, the main focus of decorations are things that pertain to the subject of the class: a history teacher would put up a map or printed posters of important moments in history while a math teacher might put up a multiplication chart or a list of important formulas. Recently, a trend in classes are blank boards with paper on it for students to hang art or even write messages onto.

Overall, the way that a classroom is designed can easily impact the course of a student’s learning experience. Depending on the student, it may benefit them greatly, or it could cause harm to the student’s learning path.