Katherine Timpf exposes at National Review Online another example of bizarre academic “research.”
According to an academic article written by an Australian professor, small chairs in preschools are “problematic” because they’re “disempowering” for teachers.
“In my first intra-active encounter with the small chair, I felt that it talked back to me about the preschool as a workplace that is gendered, feminsed, child-focused and ultimately disempowering,” Monash University senior lecturer Jane Bone writes in an article for the journal Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, titled “Ghosts of the material world in early childhood education: Furniture matters.”
Even if talking with chairs were normal, I would still say that this seems pretty crazy. That physically small chairs are the standard for physically small people seems . . . well . . . standard. What do these preschool kids need, giant barcaloungers? To finger paint in? So that no one feels disempowered by a piece of furniture? That would be a great use of taxpayer money? …
… Look: I’ve always considered myself to be a very emotional person (and more emotional than most), and yet, I’ve got to say that I have never felt a deep psychological connection to a piece of furniture. And I’ve known a lot of furniture, not to brag. I’ve sat on it, laid on it, eaten off of it — but I’ve never had a conversation with furniture and certainly not one that left me feeling like I had lost power over my life.
