Infusing Movement Into Secondary-School Classrooms

(Originally titled “Learning from the Feet Up”)

In this article in Education Update, Kathy Checkley reports on a number of ways secondary teachers can get teenagers moving in their classrooms to overcome torpor, increase blood flow to their brains, and get neurons firing. Sitting for extended periods of time “is biologically incompatible” with effective brain function, says Michael Kuczala of the Regional Training Center in New Jersey. “The brain wants the body to move… Movement is important because it makes for a better learner.” 

Why don’t more teachers get adolescents moving in class? One reason is concern about classroom management and losing control of barely-under-control students. But in fact, well-orchestrated movement may prevent discipline problems and help problem students behave better. Another reason many teachers hesitate to build movement into their classes is that they’ve forgotten how stultifying and, in fact, exhausting it is to sit for long periods of time. 

To change the conventional mindset about what a classroom looks like (students sit, the teacher moves around), PD leaders should remind teachers of what it’s like to endure long meetings and get them on their feet and active during workshops. When this happens, says Kuczala, “They begin to feel and understand that we don’t just learn from the neck up. We learn from the feet up.” Here are some specific ideas for secondary classrooms:

Standing up and stretching – A short break with students reaching arms overhead, bending left and right, touching the floor, and standing on their toes is amazingly beneficial.

Acting out content – In a geometry class, the whole class stands and students mime circumference, diameter, and radius; in a Spanish class, students act out cracking an egg as they learn heuvo; in English, students act out the word lackadaisical. 

Give one, get one – Students find a partner and compare notes on the day’s lesson, identifying similarities and differences in their learning.

Voting with their feet – Students peruse signs around the classroom displaying variations on the answer to a key question and stand by the one they think is best.

Learning stations – Students move from one activity to another, cycling through all of them by the end of the period.

Gallery walk – For example, in a class on the Holocaust using Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, students spend 20 minutes moving around the room jotting reactions to a series of primary-source images and displays.

Story telling – The teacher tells a story and students work in groups to retell the story while speaking in Spanish, using whiteboards, iPads, or acting it out.

“Learning from the Feet Up” by Kathy Checkley in Education Update, August 2015 (Vol. 57, #8, p. 2-3, 6), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1WO55ZG 

From the Marshall Memo #600