HAVEYOU EVER CONSIDERED how unbearable it must be for our children and their teachers in their overheated primary and secondary school classrooms here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and throughout the Caribbean?
A follow-up consideration should be, how does a superheated classroom, which is significantly hotter than the same classroom we occupied many moons ago, impact a student’s ability to concentrate and, by extension, to learn? Of parallel importance, how is their teachers’ ability to impart knowledge likely to be compromised when the classroom temperature is consistently hovering around, or above, 90°F (32.2°C)?
The impact of overheated classrooms on learning, test performance, and teaching Research has shown that excessive classroom temperatures significantly compromise a student’s ability to concentrate, their test performance, and clouds their thinking.
Studies also confirm that high classroom temperatures compromise a teacher’s ability to impart instructions.
While excessive classroom heat negatively affects children’s academic performances across all subject areas, the impact is greatest on math and math-like subjects.
An excessively hot classroom often results in the students and their teachers becoming:
- Irritable
- Fatigued
- Unmotivated
- Distracted
- Discouraged While an ultra-hot classroom results in children
being:
- Cognitively compromised.
- Slower when performing tests and when completing assignments.
- More disruptive and aggressive.
This is not a tenable situation and needs to be addressed with ardour, expediently, apolitically, compassionately, pragmatically, and collectively by a wide cross-section of society, especially those with genuine concerns for the biopsychosocial welfare of our children and their teachers.
The ideal classroom temperature for learning and teaching is 74°F (23.3°C). A temperature that is seldom experienced naturally in the Caribbean.
A study by the American Economic Association revealed that for every 1°F rise in classroom temperature, there is a corresponding 1% fall in marks. Conceptualise what is happening to the marks in a classroom whose temperature is 16-22°F higher than 74°F.
No one is immune to heat-related illnesses, however, some are at higher risk, for example: Children
- Young children
- Those returning to their classroom after PE (physical education)
- Asthmatics
- Overweight
- Sickle cell disease
- Gastroenteritis
- Febrile illness
- Other.
