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Time To Rethink the School Desk?
theodp writes "As part of its reimagine the 21st-century classroom project, Slate asks: Is the best way to fix the American classroom to improve the furniture? While adults park their butts in $700 Aeron chairs, kids still sprawl and slump and fidget and dangle their way through the day in school furniture designed to meet or beat a $40 price point. 'We've seen in adults that if you put them in the right chair, their performance increases,' says Harvard's Jack Dennerlein. 'Is the same true for children? I can't see why not.' For school districts with deep pockets, there are choices — a tricked-out Node chair from IDEO and Steelcase can be had for $599."
I take it you've never heard of apprenticeships? For humour's sake, here in Soviet Canada at the high school I went to, there was a for-credit cooking class that actually produced the specials that the cafeteria sold, and most of the regular cafeteria staff were also students.
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The chairs attached to a small writing pad (like the one linked to) are just horrible for a lecture or class. You can fit no more than a small notebook on the surface: want to get out your other notebook, a handout, or your laptop, and take a look at both at the same time? Tough luck!
You think those are bad for most people? Try one if you're left-handed. I've been in rooms with desks like that bolted to the ground where it's about equally comfortable to use the "desk" attached to my chair as it is to use the desk attached to the chair to my left.
The ones with desks that actually stretch across you the whole way aren't too bad, but still noticeably worse if you're a lefty, and a lot worse for everyone than an actual desk.
Sometimes you'll even get a room with lefty desk-chairs. Of course, there may well not be enough of them, and you may well be stuck at the edge of an aisle instead of being able to sit where you please, but that's what you get for being a southpaw.
(I'm not bitter. Not at all.)