Professor’s Research Removes Desks from Classroom, Gets Kids Moving
For some children, a school desk can feel like a cage. They fidget and squirm and may act
out. Disruptive behavior earns them the label of troublemaker. Learning suffers.
Karen Smail, a College of Charleston physical education professor and a former
schoolteacher, believes there’s a simple solution to this age-old problem: Banish traditional
classroom desks and replace them with exercise desks.
Known as active-based learning or kinesthetic learning, this emerging field is steadily
gaining converts. But with a dearth of hard data on the health and academic benefits of the
exercise desks, teachers and school administrators aren’t exactly rushing to convert their
classrooms into gyms.
That’s where Smail and some of her students in the College’s Exercise Science program
come in. They are conducting a pilot research project with teacher Stacey Shoecraft’s fifth
grade math and science class at Pinckney Elementary School in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
The classroom has no traditional school desks. Instead, the 36 students rotate among
several exercise desks –– raised tables featuring various types of exercise equipment that
enable children to move their legs and lower bodies while doing classroom work. The
attachments include pedals for cycling and foot platforms that simulate the movements of
treadmills, elliptical machines, stair steppers and other exercises. The desks being used in
the study are manufactured by Huger, S.C.-based KidsFit.
Given the nation’s childhood obesity problem, few would argue against a program that gets
kids moving more. But taking on the iconic classroom desk as well as the long-held belief
that children learn best while sitting is a tougher sell.
“It’s a radical way to teach,” Smail said. “The biggest issue is getting teachers and principals
to believe in it.”
The question driving the initial phase of research is straightforward: Do the children’s
heart rates increase over time as a result of using the desks? Smail, along with three exercise
science majors assisting with the research as part of their senior capstone, will answer this
question by regularly recording the students’ heart rates over the course of the school year.
In the fall, the project will be expanded to evaluate whether the desks help to improve the
children’s academic performance on standardized tests. “If you can sustain a higher heart
rate over time, that means you are getting more blood flow to the brain,” Smail said.
So far, the biggest challenge for Smail has been designing research protocols. To her
knowledge, no one has yet conducted a research project like hers, using a regular class.
Since the desks were installed in April 2013, the feedback from the children and their
parents has been overwhelmingly positive, Shoecraft said. “The students have such a
positive attitude about learning, and they love coming into the classroom. They know that
movement is okay and a crucial part of learning. The parents are some of the biggest
supporters. They wish they had it when they were kids.”
The seeds of the project were first planted 10 years ago when Smail began partnering with
Charleston County schools on projects designed to boost the aerobic activity of children.
Excited by Smail’s work, Shoecraft asked if they could bring the concept into the
classroom. Smail, of course, jumped at the opportunity to gather real data on a class of
willing and rambunctious fifth graders.
After the proposal was met with support from the school’s principal and school district
administrators, the exercise desks were purchased with private funds raised by Shoecraft
and her students. One student even sold toys on Ebay to help finance the project.
If Smail’s research demonstrates that children benefit from the exercise desks, those results
could help persuade more parents, teachers, principals and school administrators to
consider using them. Publishing the research in academic journals also could help attract
other partners and funding to expand the research.
The most common concern Shoecraft and Smail hear from other educators is that the
exercise desks will cause teachers to lose control of their classrooms. But that hasn’t
happened, Shoecraft said. In fact, her students seem more focused and better at staying on
task. “I am hopeful that when they see how it improves the learning environment, then we
can start to change our traditional classrooms into ones that are geared for moving minds
through movement.”
The project is also benefiting from greater public awareness about the health and
productivity benefits associated with standup desks, particularly in the workplace.
[Related: Read why Runner’s World magazine says, “Sitting is the New Smoking.”
http://www.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-even-for-runners]
Smail would love to someday see exercise desks replace traditional desks in classrooms
everywhere, in the same way that smart boards have gradually replaced chalkboards. But
she also recognizes that such conversions come slowly. “It takes time because you are trying
to change a culture.”
For more information, contact Karen Smail at SmailK@cofc.edu or 843.953.8247.