Okay, so the title's a bit hokey (and stolen from a movie about school), BUT still an interesting NYT article about physiology's impact on learning.
Hey, I hated sitting in desks at school. Pure torture. I loved my science labs. Experiments were interesting in and of themselves, but in lab you could move around. Change position. Look around. Tap. Bang. Drum. Doodle. And if you nailed the lab, no one cared. It was all about the learning; not enforcing a set of rules.
We should be creating environments that are more conducive to learning, thinking and teamwork. The right furniture is a start.
Why don't we have a national center where we figure this stuff out? Department of Education? We have Dept of Defense war colleges, labs and think tanks that have done an excellent job of making the US fighting machine efficient and effective. I mean if we can create the right gear for a Navy SEAL to parachute out of a plane into the ocean, swim 5 miles to shore and hike 2 miles through the jungle, we can surely figure out the right desk/chair arrangement for junior high schoolers.
Of course, it'll probably cost $1,459,733.21.
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2 comments:
I totally agree with you, Todd! Plus I was a notorious napper in college...if I wasn't engaged in some way, even toothpicks couldn't hold my eyes open. They do conduct ergonomic studies, but the more we can move away from sedentary learning, the better!
The lab / desk contrast is maybe a bit stark -- Shakespeare may have played to groundlings, but you probably don't want to stand for the whole of Henry V.
Your point is good, though I'd hate to use the SEAL-gear procurement process when individual districts or even schools could ask:
- Does bolted-down furniture help learning, or is it an attempt at Ritalin for butts?
- What kinds of furniture could we try out to give us options, encourage collaboration, make it easier to learn?
One of my colleagues talks often about the factory model for learning, which is the template lots of school officials (and, yes, parents) have in mind. That'll be harder to change than the Pentagon's longing for systems best suited to fighting the Red Army in Europe.
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