Classroom environments

Teachers over here don't make an attempt to do anything within the classroom in the way of displaying children's work, making displays, providing scaffolding for student learning. The children stay in their home room and the teachers rotate, so their really isn't any ownership of the room. They don't put up displays after their lesson because someone else is teaching in the room and you definitely do not stay after school to do anything, let alone create a classroom display. Because the students come to the ICT labs, I've been making an attempt to hang work, and take away the blandness, a typical new year empty classroom syndrome. I read the younger boys Where The Wild Things Are and worked with the art teacher to make a few monster faces. Ive hung them on some fabric strips from a wire in the classroom in a vain attempt to create a forest /trees with monsters. I've taken key vocabulary from the story and hung that around in the hope the students may read it and practice their English. I think the teachers think I'm mad, and I know the boys are not too sure.I shall persevere, at least it takes the starkness out of the room. Most New Zealand teachers were so good about displaying children's work. When you work in a sterile environment you realise how vibrant a NZ classroom is. ;-)