
Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/us/25desks.html?hp
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biohacker42
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.

~~~
decode
"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?

~~~
biohacker42
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.

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snprbob86
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.

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divia
37signals post about switching to a standing desk:
[http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1001-standing-versus-
sitt...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1001-standing-versus-sitting)

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._

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nazgulnarsil
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
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>

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helveticaman
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.

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

