SUMMARY

Postural stereotypes of primary school children, school furniture, daily routine and their corelation.

(Alternative schools in relation to body posture and their comparison with common primary schools)

Mgr. Petr Vašátko

Department of Anthropology and hygiene

Key words: Posture, postural stereotype, muscular dysbalance, school environment

In my thesis I would like to focus on the problem of children´s improper posture and some aspects that cause it. My research should take place in school environment only, although home environment should be considered too.

Improper posture in our population is a serious problem, even more serious in relation to children. It is well – known that human backbone develops mainly in early childhood. There are some natural forces ensuring that the backbone of every child will develop without major complications. For example, toddlers usually keep elevating their heads, this results in formation of cervical lordosis. Primal mechanism of backbone evolving granted by evolution of our species was (and is being) disrupted by our modern way of life and physical environment of educational process.

Improper postural stereotypes, such as scoliosis, round or flat shoulders etc., can occur in childhood as well as in adulthood. In the first case it can be caused by shool (although it´s never caused by school alone, more precisely, school can partake in inducing problems mentioned). The factors are many – daily shool regime, condition of school furniture, school breaks, physical training and teacher´s awareness of proper and improper posture. There is no doubt that the last mentioned aspect is an important part of teacher´s training.

The primary cause of improper posture are the muscular dysbalances of two basic muscular groups on different sides of human body. The first group includes postural muscles while the second is represented by locomotive muscles. When some of the muscles from both groups are dysbalanced with each other, the result is an improper posture in the part of body that this muscles affect.

First I plan to measure postures of chosen pupils in the Czech Republic so that I could make comparison according to type of school they attend. There are three main groups that I would like to compare – common primary schools, alternative schools and schools that have adopted some health programme, for example health promoting schools.

The last part of my research concerns posture relationship to specific physical environment and time organization of each school (furniture, resting places, etc.)

I hope my thesis will bring some relevant results that will help to prevent our pupils´ postural problems caused by school environment.