My School Desk - Old Wooden Variety

Do you remember your first school desk? Mine was an old battered wooden desk with names of past children scratched into its varnished top. It had a place for an ink well at the top right hand corner (too bad if you were left handed) and a shallow channel to rest your pens and pencils to the left of that. The top was hinged at the back so that you could lift it up and underneath was the black hole of the interior where spiders might lurk or old bubble gum would stick to your fingers. This was where your big books went and where it all ended up in a real mess, with everything you needed always at the bottom alongside the sticky sweet papers and glass marbles whilst the things you never used were on the top (strange isn’t it?).

My desk was a double desk and had the shiny, polished bench seat attached to it with strong cast iron braces. The bench had a wooden back on it but it was very hard on the behind and after a whole day sitting on it you were glad to get up off it and run home.

As I progressed through school the ethos and the school furniture was changing, most common desks became school tables with boring brown melamine tops rather than solid wood. They were dark and still heavy to move around but they did allow the room to be changed to suit the lessons, unlike the real wooden desks. Names were still carved into the tops, but they were characterised by thin scratchy white lines which never looked as good as the more organic carvings on wood. Unfortunately the melamine tops chipped and cracked and sometimes the surface lifted which made it easy to peel bits off so after a few years they really looked quite sad.

As I moved on to college the school desks changed again to chair desks, these were chairs with removable slip in writing areas on the right side of the chair. They were a great idea unless you were left handed as it was pretty hard to sit comfortably in a lecture while struggling to write on a right handed desk. The ergonomics of this type of desk was plain to see, in fact, I am not sure if the ergonomics were even considered, or indeed if the word even existed at this time. After several hours of crouching hunch backed over these tiny surfaces it was a job for the physiotherapist.

When I began to work in a preschool, desks for children had shrunk to a size I didn’t think existed, they were tiny little modular desks that could be put together into squares or hexagons so that a few kids could sit with their friends on the tiny little plastic or wooden chairs with metal frames that stacked together into precarious towers. The desks could stack too so that there was space for drama, storytelling or more active games. They came in circles, rectangles and a one side of a hexagon shape and were a boring grey color.

Wood bench home school desk

Now in primary school or kindergarten, college or university desks are made in bright colours, they are functional and fun. They stack away neatly at the sides of the room and are easy to manoeuvre into storage areas. This is a consideration for the home study desk too which should be moveable, yet comfortable. They are good to look at and not so easy to carve into. The home desk should not be too austere as it may be a deterrent to study. Be proactive and do not stick to the tried and trusted methods and try a bit of innovation when selecting school or study furniture for home use.

Large group desks

They are easily arranged into communication areas so that everyone can sit together or separately if necessary. The ergonomics of the school desk and chair still need to be researched as it is obvious that sitting hunched over a desk on a rigid chair for long periods of every day is not the best way forward. Some believe that with the obesity problems facing the next generation that children should move about much more and perhaps even stand at lessons.