Tell me about it. In our classrooms, the students have no individual desks. They sit four to a table, facing each other. So what does that tell them? The minute they sit down, they are facing another 12 year old and I'm just that irritating voice in the front of the classroom, which they have to crane their necks to even look at. No wonder they think the most important thing going on is at their table, not up at the front of the room. Moreover, the idea of individual responsibility in a room where you don't even have individual space makes no sense. It's the worst POSSIBLE set up for a room full of pre-teens.
But you just know some touchy-feely twit said, "We need them to interact in order to socially construct knowledge." No, we need them to stop interacting long enough to learn something. They interact constantly! They're all over each other like horny puppies. My only hope is to pull them apart before they actually figure out what they're trying to do.
So, I guess you're the "guide on the side," not the "sage on the stage."
For the life of me, I can't understand why students have to sit at tables in little groups "and socially construct knowledge" with one another. What a load of BS. The little twerps are generally too ignorant of the subject to "construct knowledge."
The teacher should be up in front of the classroom actually teaching IMHO. The kids can look straight ahead at him/her without getting cricks in their necks too.
I can understand why there are so many disciplinary problems in the public schools today. They sound like madhouses.
Today's public schools are set up for failure.