A Modern Problem...
Furniture & Movement
Furniture design and restrictions on movement are negatively impacting on our health and wellbeing. Here we examine how, why and what we can do about it.
The solutions are often very simple.
Movement, Learning and Wellbeing
We Have Evolved to Move
We are teaching our children that sitting down for long periods of time is a necessary preparation for adult life. This is especially true of schools, where children are also expected to sit in badly fitting, badly designed furniture.
What is this doing to the developing body and what is this doing to our children's mental health?
Quite naturally, young children want to move around most of the time. When they do this, we often teach them that there is something wrong with them, that they are being badly behaved. In extreme cases we even medicate them.
The environment we live in, plus how we behave in that environment, shapes our bodies.
Our bodies evolved on the grasslands of Africa and for millions of years we pursued a hunter/gatherer existence. Everyday we walked, ran and used our bodies in various ways that utilised a vast range of movements.
Thousands of years ago many human communities began developing agriculture and started to become more and more sedentary. But Since the 18th century and start of the industrial revolution, our lives have changed dramatically.
The present technological revolution began just few decades ago and we move less now than ever before. Much of our lives involves sitting and standing. Even when we do walk, run, cycle, play sport, exercise in the gym, we are usually constricted by shoes, hard, regular surfaces and a repeated, limited range of movements.
Our bodies took more than 500 million years to evolve, emerging slowly to function in a very specific environment. In a very short span of time we have changed that environment almost completely.
Is it any surprise that so many adults and children are suffering from mental health issues, obesity, behavioural problems, addictions, back pain and a range of so-called lifestyle illnesses such as diabetes?
We cannot wait for evolution to catch up with us, it is up to us to now consciously evolve.
We can learn the skills that enable us to thrive rather than just survive
We can choose to modify the modern world and to both create and value human-friendly environments.
This is happening now at Educare Small School.
At Educare we we use The Ready List and encourage as much movement as possible during the school.
Take a look at our video below and then visit www.educaresmallschool.org.uk
To understand more about this topic see below for the full interview with AT Teacher Richard Brennan or the short introduction video also made by The Developing Self. Also reading recommendations can be found below.
