Kids Can’t Sit Still and Neither Can You

Walk into any staff room and you will hear teachers complaining about the poor behaviour of their students. Statements such as “student’s won’t sit still” or “students can’t pay attention” are commonplace. The implicit argument teachers are making when they complain like this is that adults can pay attention so students should learn to.

The problem with this argument is that it’s not true. Any person that has presented at a professional development conference knows that adults are terrible listeners. They constantly get up, move around, and complain when tasks aren’t engaging. This happens not because adults are poor listeners but because its difficult for all people to sit still and pay attention for long periods of time.

This argument was recently supported by therapist Angela Hanscom, who joined a middle school class to observe students. What she discovered surprised her. She was unable to sit and pay attention just like the fidgety children she was surrounded by. Angela’s revelation was shocking because she believed she could pay attention better then middle schoolers. In reality the gap between Angela’s ability to pay attention and a middle schoolers is not as large as it first appeared.

This information should influence many aspects of education but my personal hope is that it changes the expectations teachers have of students. Instead of holding lofty expectations of how teachers think children should behave teachers would hold more realistic expectations that are in line with the ability of children. An easing of teacher expectations would help improve the relationship between teachers and students because students would see that teachers are aware of the plight of sedentary life.

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