Schools would be better if the students do not wear shoes

Bare feet in class improves the performance of students



Everyone who attended the school have any memory of a desperate teacher trying to calm the crowd. To get this done, probably a student was expelled from the room and there were threats of extra tasks - often without success.

Today, the strategy could be another: take off your shoes. A study at the University of Bournemouth in the UK, has shown that children who go to school without shoes behave better and score higher. The researchers observed for 10 year thousands of children in over 100 schools from 25 countries left their shoes outside the classroom and realized that they were more punctual and engaged students.

The research part of the policy of English schools where children study barefoot - the model has been copied in Scandinavian countries, which had already realized that the practice improved the performance and behavior of students. The first reason for students to take the shoes was much simpler: for many years, northern Europe's children came to class with dirty feet of snow or mud.

Now, the British scholars defend the Scandinavian habit of taking the shoes to give children better at school. The researchers believe that this way children feel at home, are more relaxed and learn more easily.

Barefoot children read more

What is your favorite place to read: in bed or in a soft armchair? If neither you that an adult would like to read a book sitting on a school chair, imagine a child who is still developing their reading habits choose this little comfortable option.

"The last place a child sit to read is a chair. We realized that 95% of them do not read sitting. When they are out of school, prefer to read lying. Give conditions for children to feel at home in the classroom means more students will read at school, "says Professor Stephen Heppel, responsible for research at the University of Bournemouth.

In schools where students can stay barefoot children arrive early and leave before - this is an average of half an hour of extra reading daily. But the advantages of taking the shoes are not restricted to school performance: the account of cleaning decreases 27% and furniture shopping too, since there is no need to have a chair and a table for each student, and they can sit on floor.

For the strategy to take the shoes to work, nothing of two weights and two measures. Heppel suggests that everyone in the school remain bare, even the teachers. "Children need to make sure that your socks will not be ridiculed by peers," he explains. However, the study does not mention possible nuisances that may hinder the use of school without shoes. The foot odor, for example.