The problem came when they arrived at visual clutter and began to describe how a student with an attention problem might experience a typical classroom. Are they listening to me or staring at the bright, primary colored alphabet above my head? Am I asking them to look at the whiteboard and focus when I have covered every spare inch with good, educational, cute, awesome stuff? Is everything in my room laminated making it difficult to read because of the glare? Do you see the problem? Can you hear me screaming silently in my head at the presenters as they tell me that what I have been spending enormous amounts of time on may in fact be derailing my teaching???
So here's the deal. I can no longer look at all of the cute and wonderful teachery things without asking myself, "will this help my students learn?" If the answer is no then I walk away(most of the time). I try to keep a single color background and place only the most essential things on my walls but I don't want the room to look bare and uncared for. I use student work to decorate and try to keep a lot of my decorations organic. There are so many teachers posting their classroom designs right now and I truly enjoy looking at each one. They are like works of art. But in some cases I think it is good to remind ourselves who the classroom is for and how we can use our space to really impact students. Sometimes I wish I had never attended that conference. I am such a push-over for themes and matching. Saying that, I absolutely think you can do a theme well and still have a clam and inviting classroom that doesn't steal your students' attention away from you!
The following photos are not of my own classroom(I grit my teeth as I wait to be allowed in...). They are inspiration only.
