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Teacher Desk Ideas for Those Looking to Refresh their Space in 2024

As the person running the classroom, you will need an organized space to do your work and easy access to the tools you need for tasks like grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents, etc. Not only is it important that you model good organization to your students, but it is imperative that you keep your area organized and functional so that you may be an effective and efficient educator. Historically, classrooms included two standard features: Desks for the students and a large teacher desk. Now, many teachers opt to not have a desk at all, while some enjoy having a dedicated place for themselves. Read below get some teacher desk ideas so you can refresh your classroom space this school year!

What is a Teacher Desk?

A teacher desk is a piece of furniture in a classroom that is designated to the instructor. It’s a workspace that teachers often use to house files, supplies, and much more.

5 Reasons to Get Rid of Your Teacher Desk

Below are teacher desk ideas to consider when determining if you are going to keep your formal workspace in your classroom.

  1. You will most likely only sit down during the school day when you are working with students.
  2. The actual desk, your chair, and the space needed behind the desk to move the chair in and out takes up a lot  of square footage. Having more space to spread out your students means more opportunities for lessons and activities and potentially less distraction and behavior issues.
  3. It puts you at risk for clutter and wasted time. Teachers often find themselves and their students dropping papers onto their desks throughout the day.  Desk drawers make an easy hiding place when you need to tuck things away quickly. You may find yourself in a continuous cycle of cleaning off your desk top and searching for things that have been stuffed into drawers.
  4. Times have changed. While lecturing from a desk to a row of students was once the norm, teachers are now expected to be up and moving all day long. Technology has advanced. A desk was necessary for housing bulking desktop computers and monitors, but now teachers often work on laptops and tablets.
  5. A desk does not provide ample surface area for teacher tasks. A table is more conducive to projects, lesson planning, making charts, etc. If you often find yourself moving away from your desk to do your work after the students have been dismissed, then you may not need to keep the desk in the classroom.

What Can I Use Instead of a Desk?

When I stopped using my desk, I began using the small group instruction area as my workspace. I set it up so there were shelves behind the table housing all of the texts. It was much more conducive to my needs. I had space to work. Also, I was able to welcome colleagues in to plan lessons collaboratively at the table with me. I even used it to conference with parents.

Best of all, I often had children working around it, so if I did take a few minutes to grade assessments while my students worked on independent work or did their daily reading and an administrator walked in, I never felt like I was “caught sitting at my desk.”

What if I Can’t Remove the Desk?

Some schools will not take away the desk for you and will require you to keep it in the room. I was told the desk needed to be available to any future teacher who may be in my classroom if I left and that there was nowhere in the school to store it. Fair enough.

I solved the problem by pushing the desk all the way into corner so it took up as little space as possible. I used the drawers to store extra supplies, housed science supplies underneath it, and utilized the surface as a place to store all of the writing center materials my students needed to access.

But, What if I Love my Teacher Desk?

Well, then by all means keep it! The most important thing is that you are able to do what works best for you.

In closing, whether you keep your teacher desk or you get rid of it, it’s essential that you have strong organization systems in your classroom to ensure that you limit distractions and maximize student learning. My classroom organization workshop is a great tool to help you do this! We hope this post with teacher desk ideas was helpful! If you enjoyed it, then you may also be interested in these posts:

If you are interested in getting rid of your teacher desk, but are unsure of what to use to house all of your teaching supplies, resources, tools, and printables, then check out this Clutter-Free Classroom blog post which will provide tips and ideas as you begin this process. Read the post to learn more! #teacherdeskalternative #teacherdeskalternatives #teacherdeskideas #teacherdeskidea #elementaryclassroom #classroomsetup #classroominspiration

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