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So now, on a serious note, why do desks get smaller as you move up in grade level? It's counter-intuitive. I mean, you get bigger, but your desk gets smaller. What's the reason for it?
I understand there are exceptions, like some classrooms using rows of narrow tables in recent years, rather than individual desks. It's possible that the elementary school desk shown here is actually a group desk for 4 or 6 students (although each student still has quite a bit of space), while other desks are all individual. But I'm speaking broadly here.
When I went through school, they got bigger until college. Elementary desks were sized to fit the student, as were middle and high school. I think what you're picturing above is the table they now use in many schools so they can have the kids in groups.
As for college, I think what happened there is the use of auditorium style lecture halls where the desk top is a flip up that has to fit between the seats. Though it seemed that in my classes the desk top was mostly used for a seat with our books and notes balanced on our knees so we could sit facing the board in the back of the room where so many professors seemed to spend 3/4 of class time.
It’s a way of making you more uncomfortable, little by little, so that you will graduate and move on. It was SUPPOSED to be a subliminal message.
Interesting...
What's funny is that your desk stops shrinking at your first office job. Then you once again have a big desk, spanning one or two walls of your cubicle. Unless you're working in a call center; then you have a high school desk---or the middle school one, if you're lucky.
I went to a K-thru-8 school, so my own desks in 1st grade and up were like the middle school desk. Desks were always set up in rows, except when kids rearranged them for group work. Kindergarten had one large table where kids sat conference room-style. My high school had desks like the high school one here; except for science classes, with big tables instead of desks, presumably to have room for lab experiments.
My own experience nonewithstanding, this meme is eerily accurate.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 04-21-2018 at 08:11 AM..
So now, on a serious note, why do desks get smaller as you move up in grade level? It's counter-intuitive. I mean, you get bigger, but your desk gets smaller. What's the reason for it?
I understand there are exceptions, like some classrooms using rows of narrow tables in recent years, rather than individual desks. It's possible that the elementary school desk shown here is actually a group desk for 4 or 6 students (although each student still has quite a bit of space), while other desks are all individual. But I'm speaking broadly here.
Discuss!
In most elementary schools students keep their books and other supplies IN their desks necessitating a larger desk. This is not the case in most high schools where students witch classrooms.
In most elementary schools students keep their books and other supplies IN their desks necessitating a larger desk. This is not the case in most high schools where students witch classrooms.
That makes sense. My grade school had desks where the top lifted up on a hinge. I do remember the difference clearly. In grades 1 thru 4 (same classroom all day), students kept everything but the kitchen sink in their desks. In grades 5 thru 8 (switching classrooms), teachers discouraged students from keeping personal property in the classroom desks. Only textbooks and school-issued supplies. Reason being they didn't want the liability or the missing homework, if something got swiped; the school didn't have lockers. Although, kids respected the "honor system" for the most part.
The kindergarten classroom had no desks to speak of, just a large communal table and cubbies. (The storage compartments, not the 2016 World Series winners. )
OP, IDK where you went to grade school, that they gave you such huge desks, but neither of the two grade schools I was in had desks that huge.
The largest desks in my experience were middle school. That's when you had desks big enough to fit all y our books inside. IDK, I guess the grade school books weren't that big? And in the earliest grades, the teachers distributed the books for each subject that required a book, and collected them again at the end of the hour. Major storage needs suddenly arose in middle school. In high school, you dragged your books around with you from one class to the next; you no longer had most of your classes in the same room, as in middle school.
What's funny is that your desk stops shrinking at your first office job. Then you once again have a big desk, spanning one or two walls of your cubicle. Unless you're working in a call center; then you have a high school desk---or the middle school one, if you're lucky.
I went to a K-thru-8 school, so my own desks in 1st grade and up were like the middle school desk. Desks were always set up in rows, except when kids rearranged them for group work. Kindergarten had one large table where kids sat conference room-style. My high school had desks like the high school one here; except for science classes, with big tables instead of desks, presumably to have room for lab experiments.
My own experience nonewithstanding, this meme is eerily accurate.
I’m glad I escaped office work, though it’s bad enough that my clothes keep shrinking or expanding.
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What's the reason for it?
