Need a little extra edge? Try doing homework and studying standing up. New research shows using a standing desk gave subjects a mild cognitive boost:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2016/01/18/using-a-standing-desk-could-give-your-brain-a-boost/
Coming soon to a classroom near you?
Standing desks can get pricey, particularly if they convert back and forth to sitting. But, I ran across this article that shows some cheap ways to build a variety of styles using stuff from IKEA:
http://www.homedit.com/ikea-standing-desk/
I wonder how much of this is correlation and how much is causation.
The educational benefits of exercise (among other things) have been demonstrated in a number of studies. I won’t pretend I’m familiar with the science except in very general terms (increased blood flow = more oxygen to the brain = good), but a standing desk is certainly exercise relative to sitting down - perhaps the chief reason they’ve become increasingly popular in recent years.
The above is acknowledged in the article, but I do question the focus on desks as opposed to standing up. It’s like saying “Treadmills may make you fitter.” So can a stationary bike, rowing machine, or actually going outside for some exercise. The same is true of standing desks: they’re one means to an end, but there are others.
The takeaway is not that standing desks are a panacea, but that schools should encourage teachers to make their lessons more “active.” This can mean having the class stand up and gather 'round for a discussion. It can mean illustrating a point (e.g. checks on a population) with a brief game on the playground, the route one of my teachers has taken. The only limits are a teacher’s creativity and the letter of the law.
Ultimately, I favor any change that moves classrooms away from the “sit, listen, note, regurgitate” model. Do standing desks make students think more? Or does it make them more effective robots? Personally, I’m not sure what to think.
I think it can help them think more, in that I think we break kids out of their own ‘world’, meaning they snap into what we’re telling them to do. Honestly, what we don’t need are standing desks, we need a more engaging model for education. The Prussian-Industrial model has done nothing in terms of progress since the late 70s. We need to engage students through freedom, and sit down with them to build individual plans for action. We also need parents to teach their children to value of knowledge, so that they WANT to learn.
Our education system is extremely systematic. Most people avoid discussing this. Our education system as it is, is only meant to give students skills in order to become good workers. We really need someone speaking out about this instead of ‘how do we get students to pay more attention to something inherently unable to engage their individuality?’ People enjoy conflating school and grades with this and that and this, when really, that just feeds this structure. We need to stop telling kids ‘just do well’ because, in that, we really do alienate aspects of their critical thought.