Is the best way to fix the American classroom to improve the furniture?

Linda Perlstein

Where, and how, are you sitting as you read this article? Are you in a chair that is not so hard as to dig into your butt? Are you at a desk or table that you can reach without slouching down or scooting to the edge of your seat? Are you comfortable? If so, chances are you are not an American schoolchild.

For Slate's latest Hive project, we have asked readers to reimagine the 21st-century classroom, and your entries are impressing us with their creativity and variety. There are pleas for classrooms that are ovals or hexagons, or traditional rectangles carved up in interesting ways. Some entries focus on one simple idea, such as a microphone for the teacher, while others reinvent the total environment. More technology is the answer, or perhaps less is. Classrooms have been moved outside the building to the schoolyard, the school bus, the mall--or altogether virtualized.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 27, 2010 1:32 AM
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