Space and the Ergonomics of Thinking

My days of summer are divided into various activities.  Read.  Write.  Play piano.  Pull weeds.  Water plants.  Rinse.   Repeat.

I cherish these down times because I know when the school year starts, things heat up.  My plants die.  The weeds take over my house.  And I forget to pay my bills.  (See my previous post on spring break.)

Anyway, today was special because I had absolutely nothing planned, which means I would be reading, writing, playing the piano, and pulling weeds.  What a perfect day.  There was a wrinkle, though.

My son Santino had a friend over today.   Our house is small, so the main area of congregation is our living room.  Two couches, television, connected to the kitchen.  There's not much going on in our bedrooms, not much furniture or infrastructure, so we basically spend 90% of our waking moments in the living room.  While Santino and his friend flopped on the couches to hang out, I relegated myself to the dining room table,  which is connected to our living room--it's one big living space.  I decided to work on writing an entry for this blog.

I floundered as I tried to remember what I was going to write about.  Think think think.  Yesterday I had dozens of ideas, mostly connected to using technology in the classroom.  Today these gems have dissipated into the dusty trails of my mind's canyons.

I know what the problem is. It's the ergonomics of thinking.  I can't think sitting on a chair, at a table.  I mean, I can do it, but for some reason the chi doesn't flow properly.  I need to slouch on a couch.  But I don't feel bad about that.  I'm not a couch potato--much. In fact, I'm extremely active when I'm on the couch.  I read, I write, I multi-task.  But there's something about having my body at a greater-than-90-degree angle that helps me think.  Heck, they have a couch in the Oval Office, so there might be something to this ergonomics of thinking.

Yes, that's Barack Obama moving a couch in the Oval Office.

This made me think of my own classroom.  Kids do most of their work at their desks, right?  But that's confining, and what might seem to be a great area to work might not pan out that way later.  I've had carpets in the past (last year, my carpets mysteriously disappeared).  Once you tell the kids, okay you can work on the carpets, you'd think you'd have the whole class running there, goofing off, and not getting work done.  That's not even close to the truth.

Kids tend to self-select with working on the carpet or other unusual places.  Some kids like to lie down, others sit cross-legged, and still others prefer to work at their desks.  When kids lie down on their bellies, they usually lie in groups, forming a star with their heads at the center.  That way, they can collaborate.  

Give them laptops, and they're more likely to work at their desks.  But they push their chairs around to find the best angle so they can share the hardware.

This year, I bought a few simple rugs for the classroom.  I'm hoping those rug-sitters will find a good place to think.

Admittedly, even though I wrote this blog post at a table sitting on a straight chair, I was still able to create.  It was hard coming and really hurt my brain, though.   I'm looking forward to going back to the couch, where I can slouch and think.