One of my classrooms is afflicted with a large (three seater) sofa right smack dab in the middle of the room, dividing the student desks area in unequal halves and really making a mess – the sofa is right in line with the projection screen.
It looks quite heavy.
Why??? would university furniture allocators perpetrate such a thing?
Any suggestions for how I can make use of a giant sofa, other than asking burly students to heave it out of the way every class, and asking everyone else to drag their desks over, would be much appreciated.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re teaching psychology, is there?
Seriously, though — do you have some way of finding out if someone else is using the couch specifically in its current location? Because if not, it seems like setting it to the side just the once would do the trick. I’d think that whoever was using it in such an odd location ought to be responsible for moving it out of the way when that class is over.
Resisting the urge to make a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference . . .
Why not just move it to the side permanently? Do you have to leave the classroom in the arrangement it came in for some reason?
ETA: Oh, seeing your last post, I’m assuming you’re sharing the room with other classes. In that case, what if you tried to stand in the general vicinity of the sofa when lecturing? That way, both halves of the classes would be taught equally and it wouldn’t be as divided.
If you’re teaching young children, you could put a small carpet in one “half” of the room and make it a little reading/activity corner, and use the other side for desks.
Is there any chance somebody moved the sofa from some other location for whatever reason (frat house prank, late-night study session, just plain needed to get a sofa out of the way) and failed to move it back? Classroom arrangements can have a striking level of inertia…
Few sofas are so heavy they can’t be simply pushed where you want them to go. I’m betting it’s not a sleeper (the only ones that are heavy, and might give trouble only if on carpet). Unless you’re mostly helium, I’m sure you can push it wherever you need to.
You can find out who else uses the classroom, right? Ask them before moving it, it could very easily be that you are all equally bothered by the thing but nobody wants to step on the toes of a “whomever needs it there” who does not exist.
But IMO it’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. So just move it.
If it moves back, now at least you know there’s somebody else who wants it that other way. Then you can find them and negotiate a plan. Which may simply be “Each moves it where they want it for their class.”
If it’s a school, there must be janitorial staff. I’d start there. Politely ask to have it removed to another location.
Chances are they will relocate it without you doing anything more, or, you’ll learn why it can’t be done, for whatever reason. And if they don’t do as you request, it seems like you’d be within your rights to take matters into your own hands and get your students to move it wherever you wish. On end in a corner, out into the hall, or elsewhere.
(You may discover it’s just there so someone can watch media comfortably when the classroom is not in use!)
I can’t move it myself right now as I am under doctors orders not to lift anything heavy, but I am thinking maybe of just moving it (asking the students to move it, I suppose) and leaving a note saying if you need the sofa to be in this weird place, please move it to the side afterwards.
It might well be a drama class beforehand, which, knowing what my high school drama friends were like, leaves me concerned!
The whole floor of this building seems to have lots of extraneous sofas in weird places, there’s a whole nook full of them around the corner. Maybe they are not sofas, but alien life forms, and they’re breeding…
