Ergonomics: Learning and Moving in an
By: Dr. Dieter Breithecker
An increasing number of international studies point to various psychosomatic complaints and symptoms like metabolic disorders, back pain, behavioural disorders, etc. Preventive health promotion thus has to become more important, in schools in particular. A school preparing students for the future always has to be a school that takes basic health-promoting conditions for the well-being of its students and teachers into account.
In this context, the students’ “workplace” has to receive much more attention in terms of a better inclusion of ergonomic seating and working conditions than has hitherto been the case in public debate.
The commonly held opinion that movement detracts from attention and concentration is no longer valid. Movement is beneficial, even while sitting. So we do need “ergo-dynamic” solutions and teaching methods that encourage students for a temporary movement rather than restrict them.
The human body, especially those of growing children, requires a steady flow of blood and oxygen and nutrients that it brings. Movement and dynamic body behaviors are fundamental to this process, which is why a static body posture should not be maintained over a long period of time.
Movement and rhythmical body behaviours have a special effect of:
* A regular change in the spinal column’s wave patterns
* A permanent supply of the intervertebral disc with nutrients
* A stimulation of the complex back muscles
* Mobilizing the more than 100 vertebrae in the spine
* An optimization of the blood circulation and thus the oxygen supply
* Maintaining the metabolism in the brain and thus attentiveness and concentration
Learning at school is still deemed a one-sided cognitive, merely cerebral process, and this is to be balanced by a sensorial-musical-creative kind of learning. The classroom of the future should be designed in a “motile fashion.”
This will include:
* Height-adjustable chairs and desks
* Chairs that absorb the student’s need to move
* Stand at desks for temporary standing
And yet, in the interest of our physically, mentally and emotionally developing children, we still have to go further. Teaching methods and forms of organization that encourage frequent changes of place (like project, group or open work) promote and demand manifold alterations of stress and relief.
The spontaneous changes between sitting, standing and walking thus made possible are ideal and should roughly take the following ratio: 50% active-dynamic sitting, 25% standing and 25% physical activity.
This makes for an individual rhythmic school-life, in which periods of mental and physical strain alternate with mobile learning and working. This makes learning more varied (changing methods, contrasting experiences) and thus more interesting. Students’ eagerness to learn and their learning performance can be provably increased. And such basic conditions will also motivate and relieve teachers.
A classroom design following the slogan “As much ergonomics as necessary, as much physical activity as possible” is an important component of an “active school,” in which, in addition to “ergo-dynamic” school furniture, we also find a rhythm to the life at school that is suitable for students, teachers and learning: mobile learning, mobility breaks, fluent organizational structures, active thinking and opening the school to the outside.
Dr. Dieter Breithecker is with the Federal Working Group for Posture and Mobilisation Support, Wiesbaden Germany, and is a member of the International Ergonomics Association - ECEE Ergonomics for Children and Educational Environments. For more information, please contact VS America, Inc. at (704) 378-6500.
