Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/us/25desks.html?hp

by robg • 17 years ago

32 10 17 years ago

biohacker422• 17 years ago

Allowing kids to stand, sit, fidget, etc, seems so obvious.

The whole sit still for hours at a time, is unnatural for kids and comes from the time when school was in a monastery and the monks thought fidgeting was devil's work.

It is amazing how long counter productive rituals can persists. Requiring kids to sit eerily still, makes teaching them harder, for no good reason. And it has been that way for hundreds of years. Civilization can be seriously crazy some times.

bcostlow• 17 years ago

When my daughter was in kindergarten, there were two classes at her grade school, both taught by young, new teachers. Her class was the so-called rowdy class. They were constantly getting visits from the principal. The other K and the two 1st grade teachers at that end of the building complained constantly about the noise.

I was at the classroom a few times while class was in session. The kids weren't out of control. They paid attention during lessons, but they weren't 'corrected' for standing up, fidgeting, or whispering to their neighbor. What 'assignments' they did in class were always done in groups and the groups could get as loud as they wanted. Nap time was often turned into extra playtime.

They let the teacher go at the end of the year. For first grade, the two classes were reshuffled, so as to mix the 'rowdy' kids in with the good ones.

Funny thing was, as a group, the rowdy kids had already covered the first quarter or so of 1st grade. Their grades in first grade were consistently better. According to a second grade teacher there we knew well, it wasn't until about midway through second grade that the original quiet kids caught up to the original rowdy ones as a group.

Did this experience change anything? Nope. My daughter's now a senior in high school at an entirely different school system, and both there and at her original kindergarten, it's still sit down and shut up.

decode• 17 years ago

"comes from the time when school was in a monastery and the monks thought fidgeting was devil's work"

Did you just make that up or is there evidence that this is actually the case?

Personally, I would have a hard time paying attention in meetings and lectures if most of the people in the room were constantly getting up, sitting down, playing with stuff, answering their phones, etc. Do you think maybe we ask kids to sit quietly because it's distracting for everyone else when they don't?

biohacker422• 17 years ago

The many school traditions go back to middle age European monasteries part is true, the fidgeting part... poetic license.

And it is true that some task require quiet. Math is one of those tasks. But I as an adult have no need to fidget all that much.

And if I remember correctly, what you learn in the early grades doesn't need that much sensory isolation, I image things quiet down during exams.

So I think the degree of stillness can be slowly increased until you're expected to sit completely still in college.

snprbob86• 17 years ago

I would have LOVED to have had a stand-up desk while in school. Stand-up desks are great for your neck, back, and mind. Adjustable height sit/stand desks are the way forward.

If you work for a big employer with ergonomic office furniture available, be sure to put in a request!

If you work at a home office, where you surely spend way too much time in front of your computer, definitely consider the investment in your health and productivity.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

unfortunately these kind of things get hamstrung before they really get off the ground. government school revolves around budgets and ease of teaching, not results.

cubedice• 17 years ago

Your point actually reminds me of a story in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman," where Feynman tries to revise a school curriculum. He gets put off at the end of the process, when the Board revokes the book choices he had fought for (to buy cheaper books) and makes an observation:

  "The whole thing was an unnecessary effort 
  that could have been turned around and done
  the opposite way: start with the cost of the
   books, and buy what you can afford."*

I think that putting in new stand-up desks could be feasible and would also ease teaching (less restricted kids would spend more time learning than trying to fight restrictions). The problem might be instead that any 'new idea' implemented by a government is going to be bungled hopelessly.

* http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

DavidSJ• 17 years ago

It's unfortunate that our schools are so authoritarian that this school is considered "among the more unorthodox".

divia• 17 years ago

37signals post about switching to a standing desk: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1001-standing-versus-sitt...

My favorite part: My attention span improved, too. I noticed an immediate increase in my ability to focus on a problem for longer, and with greater clarity. When I was blocked by some problem, I was able to just walk away from the desk, whereas before the effort of getting up from my chair often made me prefer to just sit and stew in my frustration.

helveticaman• 17 years ago

If you're going to improve education, why don't you start using dvorak? It's the absolute lowest hanging fruit. Hell, it's the watermelon of education.

Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not

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