Please stand up: it benefits your health

Please stand up: it benefits your health

Tierra Combs

Staff Writer

When stepping into Lana Coverdale’s vibrant classroom students get to see excited smiles, colorful student-made posters and lots of pictures of puppies. Coverdale’s classroom appears to be a great learning environment for developing students. What is not on the surface is the deep concern Coverdale has for her students’ physical and mental health. Her concern stems from the amount of time that students spend sitting.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, students are sitting up to 85 percent of waking hours, and prolonged sitting is a potential cause for an extremely long list of health issues. In addition to the physical issues extended sitting causes, it has also been found to be a factor in mental health and school performance.

“You can see kids in the hallway and they’re lively… and sometimes when they come into class as soon as they sit down, it’s like sleep mode. It’s just this complete depletion of their mental and physical abilities,” Coverdale said. Coverdale also explained how she is able to relate to her students when they are constantly sitting.

“I’ll tell you that I’ve been there. I used to work in an office where you sit a predominant amount of time, and any time you have a meeting here at school, you sit. It’s like any energy you had when youwalked through the door was depleted as soon as you walked into themeeting.” Coverdale said.

Since becoming aware of these daunting realizations, Coverdale has began implementing her brain break method into her curriculum and daily activities. Brain breaks are short activities that let students stand up and participate in physical movement. Coverdale regularly tries to incorporate Spanish into brain breaks to help her students practice pronunciation and to counteract the physical and mental consequences of lengthened sitting.

“I think brain breaks are a really cool idea. Mrs. Coverdale’s class is the only class I really get to have fun and learn at the same time,” said Mia Collins (10), a student in Coverdale’s seventh-period Spanish class.

Coverdale also decided to apply for a grant through Actively Learn and Steelcase. If received, these grants would enhance the learning environment with new, stunning mobile and stand-up desks. When Mrs. Coverdale received the news that she did not receive either of the grants, she was extremely disappointed.

“The last [grant] that I put in for was through Steelcase. They would come in and redesign your classroom. They looked really nice… I would have loved to get that,” Coverdale said.

Despite losing the grants, Coverdale is continuing to encourage her students and fellow teachers to stand up, get moving and create healthier habits in the classroom.