Content area
Full Text
Classrooms with rigid seats recall an era when teachers held court in front of rows of submissive students. Obedience took precedence over comprehension - as long as a student was sitting up straight, it didn't necessarily matter if he or she was learning the lesson being taught.
And it wasn't unheard of for a posture-makes-perfect teacher to help bring about an upright sitting position by putting a yardstick down the back of a student's shirt.
This era may still exist in some classrooms and schoolhouses, but most modern educators have come to realize that students learn in many different ways. They recognize that fidgeting and restlessness is a feature, not a bug, in the makeup of most young students.
Some students may do fine sitting passively in a straight-back chair for hours at a time, but plenty of others need a little more variety and movement to stay on task. And as teaching strategies gravitate toward a greater focus on hands-on and interactive student involvement, classrooms benefit from active seating choices that accommodate or even...