“Welcome to class, you sit at desk number three. Please go find your seat.” 

Many teachers favor assigned seating for a myriad of reasons. It makes things easier for them. As for the student? It’s seen as an enemy to some, something that splits them from friends and puts them with people they don’t like. To others, it’s seen as something neutral, or the chance to make new friends and actually meet people. Some friends they’ll like, and foes they don’t.

From what I’ve seen though, assigned seating typically works out much better and efficiently in the classroom. It allows the teacher to arrange the seating in a less problematic manner. Not keeping chatty friend groups together or two people with heavy aggression toward each other.

In addition, it focuses on the purpose of high school: to prepare teens for the workplace. It’s well known how mundane the office, or area of work, is for employees. That means high schools should prepare students for this type of environment, which will make it a lot easier for those getting into work. “That’s a great way to prepare for the real world; you’re not always going to be with your best friend,” English teacher Doris Schlothan said. “This is how we prepare students to start being able to cooperate with their coworkers, not just who they want to be around.”

Ultimately, the classroom arrangements are up to the teacher running the class. Students are going to find ways to goof off, in the end if they want to, but it definitely lessens the noise and eases the classroom and encourages talking to other students. It will most likely help growing young teens find the type of people they work well with, and ones they seem to be completely unable to work with, as they find themselves in this world.