CJUSD Students Get Out of Their Seats to Learn

COLTON>> Step inside some of the Colton Joint Unified School District classrooms and you will see that something’s different. Students may be standing, seated on the floor, or perched on yoga balls while they attentively focus on their lessons. This is flexible seating, and for many educators, it is making a difference in the way they teach. One of them is Kathryn Erickson, who teaches sixth-grade at Mary B. Lewis Elementary School. Erickson became interested in flexible seating options last year after learning that colleagues were using this classroom method. She started out with a few yoga balls at a table, and soon expanded. Erickson said it has helped her students to feel comfortable and helps them focus on what they are learning. “How many adults can sit still at their desks for seven hours?” Erickson said. Don Tornberg, a fifth-grade teacher at Sycamore Hills Elementary School, agreed with Erickson. “The days of sitting in straight rows are over,” Tornberg said. “This generation is mobile and we’ve got to get them moving. The fact that they are moving helps them to focus more. If you’re rocking, it doesn’t bother me. At the end of the day, it’s about doing what you need to do, getting tasks done.” He said he sees flexible seating as part of a movement in education to give students more of an active role in their learning experience. “The core of the lesson’s there. How it’s delivered is going to change,” he said. The freedom has not caused any classroom management issues, Erickson said, who noted that students clearly understand it as a privilege that could be taken away if not respected. Tornberg has the same rules. “It’s really cool. We don’t have to sit all day. We can be more comfortable and more successful,” stated sixth-grader Leslie Sanchez. Sixth-grade student Mia Arrellano likes sitting on the yoga balls at a table toward the front of the room. “If I can sit closer, I can see better and focus on the board,” she said. “If you’re comfortable, you’re focusing on your work instead of focusing on being comfortable.”