Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not

[groovedaddy]

MARINE ON ST. CROIX, Minn. — From the hallway, Abby Brown’s sixth-grade classroom in a little school here about an hour northeast of Minneapolis has the look of the usual one, with an American flag up front and children’s colorful artwork decorating the walls.

But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the country, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown’s class do not have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget all class long if they want.

And they do.

On one recent morning, while 11-year-old Nick Raboin had his eye on his math problems, Ms. Brown was noticing that he preferred to shift his weight from one foot to the other as he figured out his fractions. She also knew that his classmate Roxy Cotter liked to stand more than sit. And Brett Leick is inclined to lean on a high stool and swing his right foot under a desk that is near chest level. Helps with concentration, he and Ms. Brown say.

The children in Ms. Brown’s class, and in some others at Marine Elementary School and additional schools nearby, are using a type of adjustable-height school desk, allowing pupils to stand while they work, that Ms. Brown designed with the help of a local ergonomic furniture company two years ago. The stand-up desk’s popularity with children and teachers spread by word of mouth from this small town to schools in Wisconsin, across the St. Croix River. Now orders for the desks are being filled for districts from North Carolina to California.

“Sometimes when I’m supertired, I sit,” Nick said. “But most of the time I like to stand.”

The stand-up desks come with swinging footrests, and with adjustable stools allowing children to switch between sitting and standing as their moods dictate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/us/25desks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[LynzM]

1. This is really cool.

One of the things that appeals to me about Montessori schools is that there is so much more freedom of movement. Forcing *anyone* to sit still for hours and hours on end isn't really fair. Even as an adult, it's difficult to do that for a job, so to do it for high-energy kids, well... I'm very interested to see what they learn from this. My guess is that the kids do better, in the long run.

[bitchkitty]

2. Way cool!

I wish they'd had them back in Ancient Rome when I was in school. :)

[TlalocW]

3. Interesting

At the Direct TV help center in Tulsa, where I had to work once after being laid off from a programming job, the monitors swivel and adjust to different heights as do the part of the workstation the keyboard is on so if you wanted, you could stand while helping clients. That way you could stretch, walk around a bit, etc. They drew the line at my juggling though...

TlalocW

[tularetom]

4. I would have loved to have a desk like this

I was a tall kid and they stuck me in this one size fits all desk where my knees hit the bottom of the desk.

If I straightened out my legs my feet hit the desk in front of me.

To make matters worse I was left handed and the desks were all set up for right handed writers.

Standing up would have made school a lot more bearable for me.

[Mugweed]

5. Me too

I also suffered from "tall, left-handed kid syndrome"....and I was a wise-ass to boot, but that's not relevant here.