What Do Your Classroom Walls Convey?

“Wait, do you teach in classroom X?” a student asked me as I passed out midterm exam papers for another class. 

“Actually, yes. How did you know that?” I laughed in response, continuing to shuffle around the room.

“Those buttons on your bag. You have them in your room too, right? I always look in your room and see them,” he answered.

He pointed to my bag, which conveyed anti-sexist and anti-racist statements. I do, in fact, have similar buttons and posters in my classroom. And, while I always hoped and intended for my own students to notice and think about them, I was surprised that this student, whom I had never met before, had also noticed them.

To be honest, I used to dread decorating my classroom. I complained about it and often did it with reluctance. As a typical high school teacher with a perennially long to-do list, it always felt like a tedious additional chore that yielded little payoff. Last year, when I taught in three different classrooms, I was secretly pleased to not have to take ownership over any of the rooms and therefore did no decorating at all.

However, this year, when I was gifted with my own room, I ultimately decided to embrace it. As a history teacher, I hung art prints of the American West, photographs of Coney Island during the Roaring ’20s, informational texts on Supreme Court cases and various Civil War images. I also hung posters and buttons with anti-bias statements. In particular, there are anti-racism and anti-sexism messages, but also messages welcoming to immigrants and including specific information about DACA.

 Photo credit: Samantha Schoeller

There is nothing particularly remarkable about any of this. Yet, in the wake of rising bias incidents in public schools and an increasingly alarming political climate, my feelings about the importance of my classroom’s physical environment have shifted. Perhaps contrary to what some may believe, as an educator I can control very little about my students’ lives and even their well-being. But I can control the physical environment they sit in for 41 minutes, five times per week. And during those precious few minutes, I can try to convey that they are welcome and safe.

There is considerable research on the connection between student learning and classroom decor. For example, a 2014 study suggested that overly decorated kindergarten classrooms might actually distract 5-year-olds. A 2009 article regarding middle and high school science classrooms urged teachers to think carefully about their choice of posters in order to maximize learning: to consider which messages they want them to convey, to rotate them in accordance with units and learning goals, and to make sure they keep students on-topic when their eyes and minds wander. 

And, while the research may be varied or even contrary in some cases, one aspect is clear: Students notice what teachers hang on their walls. In that context, what messages do we want to convey, beyond the content in our lessons? How can we let them know we care about them, even if they don’t want to talk to us directly? How can we try to make them feel just a little bit safer inside their seats, especially in increasingly uncertain times? These questions should drive our choices. Clear anti-bias messages sent via our physical environment are one very small way to begin to approach these issues.

“Do you like the buttons?” I asked this young person I had just met.

“Yeah,” he said. “I like them.”

I’m glad he did.

Schoeller is a high school history teacher in Brooklyn, New York.