Ball Chairs

I first saw ball chairs in a 6^{th grade classroom taught by the finest teacher I know, my former grad school cohort member, later my endorsement mentor, and my friend Lindsay. She said it would help the squirrely kids have a way to get their wiggles out without becoming that regular pain in the ass every class has. About that same time, I saw an article in the paper about a teacher at the school where I used to be a librarian who was using ball chairs also in her 4th grade class. She claimed it cut down on classroom management problems by a huge degree.}

So when I realized that my Open Gym money would cover at least half of the cost of getting a set of Physio ball chairs for my small class, I decided to take the plunge. I talked to Lindsay to find out what kind of chairs she got, did more research on Amazon, read reviews and placed an order. The chairs ran about $40 each so it was a pretty tidy sum but that made me more determined to make it work, even if it didn’t.

About the same time, I thought "in for a penny, in for a pound" and wrote up a Donors Choose request for the same chairs. Donors Choose is a website where teachers can write requests for classroom equipment and anyone from around the world can decide to be a nice person and donate money for the request. It’s like a world funded grant site with fewer restrictions than most grants. I figured if I got the chairs funded, I could cancel my Amazon order and use my Open Gym money for something else and pay back my out of pocket expenses.  Or set them aside for next year when my class size is expected to double.



The Amazon order came in first. I considered presenting the chairs to the kids as a kind of classroom Christmas present but then worried that they might think they owned the chairs and would get to take them home at the end of the school year. So I waited until returning from Winter Break to blow them up and had them waiting for the kids to start off the New Year. Thankfully, the school has an air compressor for gym equipment that I appropriated to blow up the chairs. Good thing, it took nearly twenty minutes per chair! And they all needed an extra push of air over the coming week, as they got used to being full.

When I presented the chairs to the class, I delighted to see that their eyes got bigger than I had ever seen, and grins wider than ever. I carefully explained the rules of the chairs (three bounces only, pick up your chair by the sides-not the little legs, use only your own chair) and they even added one: if you fall off your chair three times, you go back to a flat chair.  And every once in a while, there will be a snigger when someone complains that someone else is "sitting on my ball."  I am always sure to follow that up with a stern "Stay on your own chair, please" which usually cuts it off at the pass.  If not and the laughing gets to be too much, I call out "C'mon (insert kid's name) wasn't talking about testicles.  Were you talking about testicles So and So?"  That shuts them all up.

We have had the chairs for 6 weeks now, and I would call it a near success. No one has had their chair taken away for more than half a day. Few classes are done with students working in the traditional manner sitting up in their desks; more often they are sprawled all over the room rolling atop the ball or stretched out catlike if they have reading to do. But I am increasing the number of minutes per day dedicated to independent work to prepare them for true middle school next year, so there is very little time spent listening to traditional lecture-style teaching.

Any visitor to our room seems shocked to see kids lolling all over the room in various relaxed poses, but work output has definitely increased. Those visitors look twice and see students who are engaged, actively working and getting assignments done. Classroom management has been much more positive since kids who used to get in trouble for not paying attention or distracting others no longer have as hard a time staying focused.

One day, Sam the principal wandered in to do a walk through observation. He came in before the kids arrived for the day so I had a chance to explain the benefits of the chairs. With his trademark grin, he asked if he could try one out. He gingerly sat down, rolled a bit and settled in. The grin grew and he told me that I could charge the school the cost of the chairs. I had been hoping for this all along but it was a vague, "wouldn’t it be nice" kind of hope, based on my experiences in every other school district where if a teacher wants to try something innovative, they are welcome to do so out of their own pocket with no expectation of reimbursement. Here, innovation, once proven, is rewarded. What a concept!