Literally standing for education

Maria Isabel Garcia

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Literally standing for education
[Science Solitaire] One thing is clear: We have to make young people in schools move their bodies if we really want them to learn better

I sucked at any sport when I was a kid. I think it was due in large part because I was raised indoors and only got to go outside during Mom’s “let go” moments that would occur as rarely as a fireball in the sky and last only as a burp in the long summers of childhood. But I was a restless kid, so in the summer when there was nothing else to do and I have already read and reread all the books in the house, I would grab illustrations of exercise in magazines and do them in my room (there were no easy videos then yet). I was quite the the “Isabel, the flexi-bel” but since I never had enough practice frolicking about in the Sun and in bigger spaces, I was uncoordinated and clumsy. But I knew I felt better and less restless after I tried all those exercise moves. Then I would go back to reading or imagining things again.

In school, at that time, they drew a dividing line between physical and mental activities so much so that students were stereotyped in either being good with their muscles or with their brains. Now, we all know that exercise applies to all who want to work their brains whether in chemistry or in sports and that keen mental abilities are at work in so-called “sports-minded” students.

For the last year or so, studies have been claiming that taking life sitting down (literally) for the most part is associated with heart disease, diabetes and even premature death. Researchers don’t know yet exactly why they are linked but the insistence of these studies had prompted me enough to go get a cocktail table for myself as my work desk. But then late last year, researchers found that it wasn’t so much the sitting but the lack of movement which could also apply to long hours of standing. So much for my standing desk.

But before we quickly dismiss the benefits of standing versus sitting, let us consider a specific scenario in which standing seems to trump sitting.

Any high school teacher would probably tell you that getting high school kids to settle in their seats is an accomplishment in and of itself. But what if you were told that standing promotes a better brain in terms of learning? This is what a study on using standing desks found out. As part of a larger study that investigated the impact of standing desks on the “couch potato” behavior of high school kids, it yielded evidence that the use of standing desks among high school students was associated with improvements in learning abilities.

By “learning abilities”, the researchers were referring to “working memory”. “Working memory” is sort of like a bowl where you temporarily store new stuff to mix with older stuff you have in stock to make sense of them. The study also found that the standing group improved in their ability to juggle tasks – a feat that requires both focus and attending to new things. And most of all, the use of the standing desks seemed to have improved the teenagers’ ability for self-control (over impulse based on emotions)- something that is, compared to other age groups, notoriously absent in teenagers. 

The use of the desks was observed only over the course of two semesters and the improvements in learning abilities were found to be comparable to having had undergone a 13-week low to vigorous exercise program. The brain images of these kids too showed a significant activation of the left frontal lobe. This is good news because the the frontal lobe which is the region for planning is what the teenage brain has to learn to strongly connect with, in order to temper the overactive teenage emotional centers.

There are so many ways we could improve learning in the classroom. One of the proven ways seem to be just avoid giving lectures and give different access to students in connecting to the topic at hand. Standing desks are a relatively easy kind of intervention since the researchers pointed out that it does not require additional training or instructional time. Although in our case when it is hard enough to get enough chairs and desks in classrooms, I can imagine the bureaucratic nightmare of having to retro-fit existing desks and chairs with longer legs.  

But one thing is clear, we have to make young people in schools move their bodies if we really want them to learn better. Whether they are standing desks or more physical activities, it is clear – we move their bodies, then we move their minds. – Rappler.com

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