Sitting Is the New Smoking

...or so the advertisement says.

This week, I was fortunate enough to hear from an international expert on ergonomics:

I went into this thinking, "He's going to tell us to get the kids up and moving." And I vowed to not be angry when he said that, as our room and our ELA lessons are very conducive to movement - and even sprawling out on the floor. He came straight from Germany, and I doubt he visited our classrooms or talked with any teachers here first.

When he first started talking about our five (six, really, including balance) senses, I wondered... what does coming into room 239 do for my students? What do they feel when they see this?

Instead of him telling us this, what he did was show what happens when we're in one spot for too long. Listed here are my notes... hang with me as I try to explain some of what he said in the hour he was here.

• What is around us has an impact on our well-being. This could be what weather we wake up to, the people who surround us, and even the look of a room when we walk in. I wondered... what do my students feel when they walk into room 239?
•  Daylight is a natural stimulant. And something we lack in fall and winter. 
•  Fresh air and plants and trees are also natural stimulants. I am SOOOO glad I committed to getting my classes outside as much as I could this year! Not only is it healthier for me personally, but for them as well.
• Body in motion is ALSO a natural stimulant. When we stand still, we're most likely NOT still. We vary our posture to fit our body's needs. We move for stimulation. If not, our discomfort will come into our consciousness, and affect our thinking.
• Sitting still slows down brain activities. 
• After 20 min (on average), we (adults) have brain and body fatigue without movement. Ah, yes. As at faculty meetings. Or conferences. Oh, man - especially if we're in folding chairs or on bleacher seats!!
• Sitting = Less blood flow
• Less blood flow = Less oxygen for your body
• Less oxygen for your body = Decrease in neuroplasticity
• Decrease in neuroplasticity = Decrease in problem solving
• Decrease in problem solving = Risk factor for cognitive decline
• It's ALL connected.
• We are made to move regularly - more than six hours a day. Our bodies were not designed to sit still in a chair.  As he's sharing all of this, I wonder - how much do I, personally, sit each day? I decided to wear a stopwatch to see. I kept forgetting to turn it on and off. After school, however, I sat for at LEAST 2-3 hours! I did notice that in school, during independent reading time, I either sat on a Hokki stool (where I could keep moving) or on the floor (where I could keep moving).
• Dr. Breithecker called these chairs (that we have in our classrooms) "stupid" chairs. According to his idea of a "stupid" chair, these the wood ones I have in our class are also stupid. They don't let students MOVE, and they're "one size fits ... no one."
• Students with ADHD often don't release enough dopamine - MOVEMENT releases dopamine.
• If there is no necessity to sit, it's not smart to sit.
• The ability to pay attention increases when given the opportunity to move.

Here are my "stupid" chairs that have been in our school for years:

Hopefully the fact that Dr. Brithecker was invited to speak to us means schools are considering changing their furniture to best fit our student population. I am so thankful that my ELA teaching counterpart / friend / "work wife" was there with me! What a valuable hour of professional development. We volunteer to host the next classroom furniture replacements! 👍

What have I already done in regards to furniture? I signed up for a class years ago to learn about flexible furniture (and then be awarded with it), but didn't get in. I won one Hokki stool at the ICE convention the year I was a featured speaker (that one might come home with me when I retire). I've put in a few grants for Hokki stools. (The last one got approved - TWELVE of them! I kept four and the others are in other classrooms.) I tried to use my yearly "supplies" budget for a few better chairs, but I was informed that I could not request furniture - even if it was under budget. I'm tired of asking  for furniture. I'm tired of bringing in my own, and buying some of my own (yoga balls have busted, a small rocking chair and a wooden stool - both from Goodwill - broke early in their careers).

Not-so-side notes: Our newer classrooms from the remodel of our school received new flexible furniture. I have my parent's old rocking chair, my co-teacher's old gaming chair, a garage sale swivel stool, my grandpa's old swivel & rolling office chair, old tables and chairs from our re-furnished library (which hosted fundraisers for money for new flexible furniture - can we, as teachers, do this?!), and cushions galore [three inflatable (more grant money), fifteen foam bleacher seats from Home Depot ($2.50 each on sale), and six outdoor cushions from Goodwill ($3 each)]. I know it to be true - Education is the profession where we bring supplies from home TO work.

What's next? I'll keep planning activities that get students up and moving, I'll keep building in breaks throughout our lessons, and there's no way I'm getting rid of cushions and floor space to sprawl. I'll keep the casters on the tables so they're easier to move. I'll continue to keep at least one table shorter than the rest. And, of course, I'm hoping for an overhaul of the furniture that is currently in room 239 as soon as possible (and before I retire).

How about some photos of our eclectic room 239???

Papa's office chair

First, the furniture that has been personally brought in: Papa's office rolling chair, the rocking chair my mom rocked me in, a foot-stool-turned-chair from Goodwill ($10), a folding camping chair I used when I bike/camped (it broke the second day it was used), and two old gaming chairs from my co-teacher's house (one is now broken), a wooden swivel stool my neighbor was giving away, and a Hokki stool I won at an ICE conference...

Why sit on the rocking chair, when you can sit on the foot stool?

He's sitting on the foot stool, using the chair as his desk.

Foot stool as stomach flattener...?

Rocking chair + foot stool

If you'd like to see more of our class in action, check out the parent tab on our Weebly for videos.

    An old teacher chair? Sure!

   Sometimes a couple of $3 Goodwill cushions are all we need...

The floor IS a favorite sprawling place for some...

And sometimes, we feel like reading in a tight corner of the room...

Oh, my goodness. As soon as I added all these photos, I remembered a post I wrote in 2012!!

Check it out HERE!

(If you have already read Shift This, you may find this older post familiar for a different reason!)

Comments about YOUR learning spaces are very welcomed below. Thank you for reading this far - let's get our kids MOVING! I hope that long gone are the days of saying, "Sit still."

Disclaimer

Observations... Being observed by administration can be nerve-wracking for anybody. But when my assistant principal walked in the room and sat down, I looked at my class through her eyes. What did she see?

Yes, he ended up on the floor... still participating vocally, even if it's hard to see his hand raised!

No, she didn't see all of this - I took these pictures a few days later, when I could catch students unawares!

Of course, she did see the changes that have occurred in my teaching - I've never done a read-aloud. I've never had so many seating options. I've never had students "talk" with other students on a Weebly set up by a teacher out in British Columbia, Canada! After she left, I had my next lesson with the same students, and I felt things were more "normal." Students were doing what most teachers expected - me leading, students sitting up, following directions, writing quietly... But I've been doing it this way for years now. I should know how to teach in this fashion.

At home, I felt I needed to write a disclaimer for the outside of my door. Something like this...

I talked with her three days later, and she helped alleviate my fears. Even though she said when she first walked in she was "alarmed," (oh, how my stomach churned when she said this!) she stayed and observed the entire 40 minutes and kept taking factual notes. She assured me that I'd established an environment for learning. She reminded me that I gave students expectations.

I explained how during the first period she witnessed me teaching what I had never taught before, and how I'm still learning what is best for students in this regard. I admitted that I didn't know what percentage of students were actually able to multi-task (play games on iPads, doodle) while I read, and what students were not. She suggested a quick reflection for after the read-aloud, and I implemented this the next day. One of my hunches was right - one student only remembered the last bit of what I'd read...

The next few minutes of our discussion centered around Genius Hour. I told her we've got the routine down nicely, but I'd still like to see students follow their passions, and do something about it. I still have the goal for students to read, be inspired, and act on it. She then asked me such a simple question: "What do you need to do to make Genius Hour better?" The rest of the afternoon, this was my focus. My next step, I've decided, is to print out the pictures I took of the board during our first Genius Hour, and ask, during one-on-one conferences, which ideas were theirs. If they were bothered by bullying or animal abuse or racism or suicide etc... why aren't they trying to do something to help prevent it? Why aren't they reading up on the issues or reading books on the causes? Why won't they share what they've learned with us so we can help prevent these issues too?

Yes, I was nervous about being observed. I was nervous about the follow-up conversation. I still feel like I need to have a disclaimer on my door. I still question myself every day if this is the very best use of our time. I still reflect after each lesson to see where I could have done better. I'm still nervous when people come in to visit, as I don't know what they'll see and what they'll miss.  However... I still believe in what I'm doing. And I still need to be challenged, so I can keep figuring out if what I'm doing is right... or if I need to fine tune my ways once again.

[Author's note, 1/19/13 - Of course, not all of these pictures were taken on the same day. Most (with the exception of the laptop) were, however, taken during a "read aloud," which is the portion of the lesson I wasn't quite sure about, as I've never done read alouds during class so often.]