School Desks Graduate to Less Traditional Designs

School classrooms in the 21^st century have a plethora of desk styles to choose from when designing or updating a classroom. Gone are the structured, connected models with a hole on the desk top for an inkwell or a jar of pencils. Students would remark, “That is so yesterday.”

Administrators, from pre-school to pre-med, have the choice of lift-lid desks, open front, table arm and combinations with chair attached. These are designed to add comfort and personalization to school rooms. The combo desk features a larger writing surface and more tummy room that is more accommodating for larger students. Similar to the chair desk, it has two legs attached to the chair and two attached to the desk. Unlike the chair desk, combo desks are equally suitable for right or left-handed students.

However, classrooms have expanded their sphere and allow for more creativity by doing away with neat rows of desks and replacing school desks with tables and chairs.“Most of the time school rooms now are using tables as desks so students can move into groups for interactive group work,” said California teacher Toby Pollock. “Kids learn by sharing with each other and that philosophy seems to fit the learning style these days.”

This new style of using tables as school desks is a change from a more structured class environment. These new style “desks” can be arranged to form circular groups of four, six or more depending on the needs of the assignment and the number of students involved. According Pollock, who has been teaching for 35 years and has seen the evolution up close, these desks are like little TV trays.

“With the new table-style, kids cannot use the desk underside to store used gum and crunched up paper with naughty, disrespectful sayings about other kids,” she said. “Students are carrying backpacks to class these days, so the shelves in desks that were used to store assignments, textbooks, papers and binders are not needed. Backpacks are used for that purpose. That leaves no more excuses for ‘leaving their home work or assignments’ in their desks.”

The trend toward backpacks is one of the main reasons why tables are more convenient than the traditional school desks. They also are more transportable because students learn by interacting and lot of change is going on in the daily classroom environment. Students aren’t “married” to their desk, unlike the antiquated theory of “sitting in your seat” of years ago. Today’s classroom teachers get their students up and moving and working with different students in the room.

School desks, according to Pollock, have to be lead free but there are no restrictions on materials. However, vandalism is an ongoing problem. Teachers and custodians have to be constantly diligent in watching out for students carving the desks or writing with permanent markers. Conversely, the use of tables as desks is ideal for accommodating and complying with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). Schools can lose federal and state funding if found they are in non-compliance.