10 ms·

Why Kids Shouldn’t Sit Still in Class

128 points by tuxguy 10y ago

artursapek 10y ago
Waldorf schools understand this!
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Waldorf schools have some good ideas but they come with a lot of wacky Steinerism like Anthroposophy which they swear up and down they don't push on the kids.
mverwijs 10y ago
Most important line to me: “Adults aren’t wired that way either.”
michaelchisari 10y ago
Basically, pomodoro for kids.
mschuster91 10y ago
> “We need to recognize that children are movement-based,” said Brian Gatens, the superintendent of schools in Emerson, N.J. “In schools, we sometimes are pushing against human nature in asking them to sit still and be quiet all the time.” Exactly: Schools are bending and breaking kids so that they will be perfectly quiet persons later in life - let's face it, not many people will do work that will require moving around in the future. Also, these kids are likely to not rebel later in life or question authorities, when their resistance has been broken early in their youth. Honestly, I'm 25 and I had ample time after school to go out and play (or, in later ages, get wasted). Now, when I'm looking at young school children - what the fuck? Sitting all day in school (in Germany we call it "Ganztagsschule") and after school on homework? Or in the US, where regular threads on HN show up about parents getting into all sorts of trouble with CPS because they let their kids play unsupervised? What dystopia is this? And this "let the kids have some movement through the school day" stuff from the article. What a looooad of bullshxt, it's the same "bend and break them" again. Let the children have time on their fucking own and not their entire wake day dictated from above (0800-1600 or such school, then sports being forced by their parents from 1600-1900 and then homework until midnight). I'm scared for the future of our society. Oh, and the biggest joke from the article is this masterpiece: > “We are not thinking about the child as an entire person, how physical activity helps them cope with the stresses of school and actually benefits them in the classroom.” What the ...? THEN REDUCE THE STRESS THEY GET IN SCHOOLS YOU ... INSTEAD OF "TREATING" THE SYMPTOMS.
- keithpeter 10y ago
  I went to school in the 60s. We did a fair amount of sitting down, but also we did quite a lot of moving about. There was the little field behind the school ('nature table' in the classroom &c) and there was 'music and movement' every day for half an hour with music and instructions broadcast on school radio. Team games, beach walks, and so on. There was also a fair amount of play-like activity in the classroom itself. No national testing. Now we have this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35940084 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35940084 ...which the government is actually doing something about (replacing the tests with teacher-lead assessment). So I agree about the (pointless and counter-productive) introduction of stress into early education. On the more positive side (I'm an optimist, teachers tend to be) I was in a bank yesterday doing some stuff a bit out of the ordinary and there was a queue. A bank employee toddles up with an iPad and a chip reader on the back and asks me what I wanted to do. We moved to a corner of the large banking hall and completed the transaction. We could just as easily have been in a large public room somewhere or a cafe. The future could include a lot of movement!
  - burntsushi 10y ago
    I went to school in the late 90s/early 00s, and there was at least as much movement as you describe. We had "gym" class every day (almost every day in high school), which was basically non-stop movement. We also had recess when we were younger, which again, was typically non-stop movement. If you played a sport (which a lot of people did), then there was even more movement. No arguments here about the testing crap though. :-)
    - 3131s 10y ago
      I remember gym class containing not nearly enough movement. Every week was learning some new game and it took half the time each day to explain rules. I worked in an elementary school a few year ago though and it's gotten worse. About 20 minutes lunch and 20 minutes recess, which was often canceled due to weather. The kids only had gym one week out of every three.
abledon 10y ago
Also reminds me of parents who are hurried, and say, 'Ok I'll just throw my kid in the stroller for today, even though they are old enough to stand/walk around today... Its just that I'm in a rush and I cant move as slow as them, i need to speeeeed down the streets to do all my errands.' So the kids are already sitting down when they are 4/5 years of age and the body is really , really trying to develop and get a sense of bone/structure/alignment but is already being corrupted by having been locked into a stroller every day mom/dad goes out for errands with them. Sheesh!
- mattmanser 10y ago
  I find this sort of attitude to be fairly insidious, you're suggesting that kids should become the entire focus of a parent's life, which is actually just as harmful.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    On the other hand, there's an obesity epidemic occurring.
  - sgehly 10y ago
    Should they not be?
    - spiderfarmer 10y ago
      No. Hovering parents are the worst.
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      IMO, no. We care (well, IMO) for our kids, but my wife and I continue to have our own individual interests and we do family or couple things that the kids would prefer we didn't. Just because we could lavish our children with 16 hours of undivided attention per day (entire focus), doesn't mean that's healthy for the kids or the adults. The kids need to learn that they live in a collective world that does not revolve around them, and the adults need to have time and space to live their adult lives as well.
Pica_soO 10y ago
Finally, i always move in circles when i think. Expecting results from me sitting still.. that is just not happening.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
Sitting still is important for children. Restricting movement builds will power through strengthening the pre-frontal cortex. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be regular activity or exercise, just that sitting still is very important.
- blablabla123 10y ago
  Sitting still is bad for the back. How is doing something that you don't want to do strengthening your will power? Disclaimer: I hated sitting still in class. At least in elementary, in the Gymnasium (~high school) teachers occasionally complained that I was too passive.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    There are three comments going on at once there: > Sitting still is bad for the back OK. More information on sitting still, it isn't surprising that any action has both benefits and drawbacks - I couldn't find much quantitative information for any more meaningful comparisons. > How is doing something that you don't want to do strengthening your will power willpower: control exerted to do something or restrain impulses [2] If willpower benefits from practice (which I believe it does) then it would be through using willpower to retrain the impulses to not sit still. > teachers occasionally complained that I was too passive. Passivity is quite distinct from willpower, likely they were referring to a lack of charisma or independence. [2] https://www.google.co.uk/webhp#q=define+willpower https://www.google.co.uk/webhp#q=define+willpower
    - visarga 10y ago
      I don't think children exhibit willpower when they sit still. They might be afraid of the teacher, or being ashamed in front of other kids.
      - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
        willpower: control exerted to do something or restrain impulses
helthanatos 10y ago
Elementary school has recess Middle/high school has PE High school / college has I'll get up when I want and stretch, thank you. Personally, I vibrate my leg a lot and get up and stretch every hour or two. Some people make fun when I Pace, but it helps.
Qantourisc 10y ago
I think it's safe to replace kids with humans here. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166415
Pulcinella 10y ago
HS science teacher here. I'm lucky in that I have lab tables that are standing height(there are of course stools as well). All the other teachers are not so lucky. One of the reasons that a typical classroom has desks in rows is because that's all the school provides. Most teachers at my school would love actual tables to group kids at. Tables are so much more flexible; you can have stations, group discussions, combine them for a round table discussion, etc. Kids and teachers can move around to the different tables much more easily than desks in rows. Your average school desk is also just a POS. They are too small for most HS students (and not just because "The Yanks are fat" you rude foreigner :P ). They are lousy build quality. They are too low to the ground. ADA height tables are actually taller than student desks. This also kills teachers' backs when we have to bend over the check student work. I would love if we had standing tables but they are expensive (especially for "school grade" tables) and schools would rather spend money every year replacing crappy desks and buying smart boards. Edit: Also as teachers we are told to be "more engaging" but then when administrators do walk throughs and observations we get docked for having the kiddos moving around the classroom and talking because some of the admin are not used to anything other than teachers lecturing to a quiet, obedient classroom.
- baddox 10y ago
  Oh dear. SMART Boards. I hadn't thought about those for a while. They were all over my high school, and they were such a waste of time and money. One of my favorite memories from high school was when a teacher mistakenly drew on one with a permanent marker.
  - Pulcinella 10y ago
    Smart boards are the Microsoft or IBM of schools. "No administrator has ever looked bad in front of parents for buying smart boards."
  - closeparen 10y ago
    +1. It certainly helped that they had a computer and a digital projector, rather than the old overhead projector, but most never used the whiteboard part.
hackermailman 10y ago
Some schools here have kids run a treadmill then they have no problems with sitting still or concentration https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2011/05/19/schools_taking_fitness_action.html https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2011/05/19/schools_takin... They also use group desks http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/treadmills-put-n-b-students-on-learning-track-1.993215 http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/treadmills-...

128 points by tuxguy 10y ago

artursapek 10y ago

Waldorf schools understand this!

jcoffland 10y ago
Waldorf schools have some good ideas but they come with a lot of wacky Steinerism like Anthroposophy which they swear up and down they don't push on the kids.

mverwijs 10y ago

Most important line to me: “Adults aren’t wired that way either.”

michaelchisari 10y ago

Basically, pomodoro for kids.

mschuster91 10y ago

> “We need to recognize that children are movement-based,” said Brian Gatens, the superintendent of schools in Emerson, N.J. “In schools, we sometimes are pushing against human nature in asking them to sit still and be quiet all the time.” Exactly: Schools are bending and breaking kids so that they will be perfectly quiet persons later in life - let's face it, not many people will do work that will require moving around in the future. Also, these kids are likely to not rebel later in life or question authorities, when their resistance has been broken early in their youth. Honestly, I'm 25 and I had ample time after school to go out and play (or, in later ages, get wasted). Now, when I'm looking at young school children - what the fuck? Sitting all day in school (in Germany we call it "Ganztagsschule") and after school on homework? Or in the US, where regular threads on HN show up about parents getting into all sorts of trouble with CPS because they let their kids play unsupervised? What dystopia is this? And this "let the kids have some movement through the school day" stuff from the article. What a looooad of bullshxt, it's the same "bend and break them" again. Let the children have time on their fucking own and not their entire wake day dictated from above (0800-1600 or such school, then sports being forced by their parents from 1600-1900 and then homework until midnight). I'm scared for the future of our society. Oh, and the biggest joke from the article is this masterpiece: > “We are not thinking about the child as an entire person, how physical activity helps them cope with the stresses of school and actually benefits them in the classroom.” What the ...? THEN REDUCE THE STRESS THEY GET IN SCHOOLS YOU ... INSTEAD OF "TREATING" THE SYMPTOMS.

keithpeter 10y ago
I went to school in the 60s. We did a fair amount of sitting down, but also we did quite a lot of moving about. There was the little field behind the school ('nature table' in the classroom &c) and there was 'music and movement' every day for half an hour with music and instructions broadcast on school radio. Team games, beach walks, and so on. There was also a fair amount of play-like activity in the classroom itself. No national testing. Now we have this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35940084 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35940084 ...which the government is actually doing something about (replacing the tests with teacher-lead assessment). So I agree about the (pointless and counter-productive) introduction of stress into early education. On the more positive side (I'm an optimist, teachers tend to be) I was in a bank yesterday doing some stuff a bit out of the ordinary and there was a queue. A bank employee toddles up with an iPad and a chip reader on the back and asks me what I wanted to do. We moved to a corner of the large banking hall and completed the transaction. We could just as easily have been in a large public room somewhere or a cafe. The future could include a lot of movement!
- burntsushi 10y ago
  I went to school in the late 90s/early 00s, and there was at least as much movement as you describe. We had "gym" class every day (almost every day in high school), which was basically non-stop movement. We also had recess when we were younger, which again, was typically non-stop movement. If you played a sport (which a lot of people did), then there was even more movement. No arguments here about the testing crap though. :-)
  - 3131s 10y ago
    I remember gym class containing not nearly enough movement. Every week was learning some new game and it took half the time each day to explain rules. I worked in an elementary school a few year ago though and it's gotten worse. About 20 minutes lunch and 20 minutes recess, which was often canceled due to weather. The kids only had gym one week out of every three.

abledon 10y ago

Also reminds me of parents who are hurried, and say, 'Ok I'll just throw my kid in the stroller for today, even though they are old enough to stand/walk around today... Its just that I'm in a rush and I cant move as slow as them, i need to speeeeed down the streets to do all my errands.' So the kids are already sitting down when they are 4/5 years of age and the body is really , really trying to develop and get a sense of bone/structure/alignment but is already being corrupted by having been locked into a stroller every day mom/dad goes out for errands with them. Sheesh!

mattmanser 10y ago
I find this sort of attitude to be fairly insidious, you're suggesting that kids should become the entire focus of a parent's life, which is actually just as harmful.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  On the other hand, there's an obesity epidemic occurring.
- sgehly 10y ago
  Should they not be?
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    No. Hovering parents are the worst.
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    IMO, no. We care (well, IMO) for our kids, but my wife and I continue to have our own individual interests and we do family or couple things that the kids would prefer we didn't. Just because we could lavish our children with 16 hours of undivided attention per day (entire focus), doesn't mean that's healthy for the kids or the adults. The kids need to learn that they live in a collective world that does not revolve around them, and the adults need to have time and space to live their adult lives as well.

Pica_soO 10y ago

Finally, i always move in circles when i think. Expecting results from me sitting still.. that is just not happening.

bayesian_horse 10y ago

Sitting still is important for children. Restricting movement builds will power through strengthening the pre-frontal cortex. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be regular activity or exercise, just that sitting still is very important.

blablabla123 10y ago
Sitting still is bad for the back. How is doing something that you don't want to do strengthening your will power? Disclaimer: I hated sitting still in class. At least in elementary, in the Gymnasium (~high school) teachers occasionally complained that I was too passive.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  There are three comments going on at once there: > Sitting still is bad for the back OK. More information on sitting still, it isn't surprising that any action has both benefits and drawbacks - I couldn't find much quantitative information for any more meaningful comparisons. > How is doing something that you don't want to do strengthening your will power willpower: control exerted to do something or restrain impulses [2] If willpower benefits from practice (which I believe it does) then it would be through using willpower to retrain the impulses to not sit still. > teachers occasionally complained that I was too passive. Passivity is quite distinct from willpower, likely they were referring to a lack of charisma or independence. [2] https://www.google.co.uk/webhp#q=define+willpower https://www.google.co.uk/webhp#q=define+willpower
  - visarga 10y ago
    I don't think children exhibit willpower when they sit still. They might be afraid of the teacher, or being ashamed in front of other kids.
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      willpower: control exerted to do something or restrain impulses

helthanatos 10y ago

Elementary school has recess Middle/high school has PE High school / college has I'll get up when I want and stretch, thank you. Personally, I vibrate my leg a lot and get up and stretch every hour or two. Some people make fun when I Pace, but it helps.

Qantourisc 10y ago

I think it's safe to replace kids with humans here. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166415

Pulcinella 10y ago

HS science teacher here. I'm lucky in that I have lab tables that are standing height(there are of course stools as well). All the other teachers are not so lucky. One of the reasons that a typical classroom has desks in rows is because that's all the school provides. Most teachers at my school would love actual tables to group kids at. Tables are so much more flexible; you can have stations, group discussions, combine them for a round table discussion, etc. Kids and teachers can move around to the different tables much more easily than desks in rows. Your average school desk is also just a POS. They are too small for most HS students (and not just because "The Yanks are fat" you rude foreigner :P ). They are lousy build quality. They are too low to the ground. ADA height tables are actually taller than student desks. This also kills teachers' backs when we have to bend over the check student work. I would love if we had standing tables but they are expensive (especially for "school grade" tables) and schools would rather spend money every year replacing crappy desks and buying smart boards. Edit: Also as teachers we are told to be "more engaging" but then when administrators do walk throughs and observations we get docked for having the kiddos moving around the classroom and talking because some of the admin are not used to anything other than teachers lecturing to a quiet, obedient classroom.

baddox 10y ago
Oh dear. SMART Boards. I hadn't thought about those for a while. They were all over my high school, and they were such a waste of time and money. One of my favorite memories from high school was when a teacher mistakenly drew on one with a permanent marker.
- Pulcinella 10y ago
  Smart boards are the Microsoft or IBM of schools. "No administrator has ever looked bad in front of parents for buying smart boards."
- closeparen 10y ago
  +1. It certainly helped that they had a computer and a digital projector, rather than the old overhead projector, but most never used the whiteboard part.

hackermailman 10y ago

Some schools here have kids run a treadmill then they have no problems with sitting still or concentration https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2011/05/19/schools_taking_fitness_action.html https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2011/05/19/schools_takin... They also use group desks http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/treadmills-put-n-b-students-on-learning-track-1.993215 http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/treadmills-...