Born to Move

But Forced to Sit Still!

We’ve built a system that fights against human biology. Children react naturally—the system doesn’t.

Children are forced to sit upright in a classroom while nature outside remains the true teacher. llustration generated with ChatGPT.

Children begin learning long before anyone starts “teaching” them. They learn through play, curiosity, and movement. They explore, experiment, and remember what stirs their emotions. No one needs to explain to a child how to learn—it’s written into their genes.

But somewhere along the way, everything changes. Suddenly, learning has to happen on the system’s terms. We replace natural exploration with sitting still, play with paperwork, and freedom with rules. What was once an effortless part of life becomes, in practice, an impossible task.

The shift from kindergarten to school is abrupt. The free, organic learning comes to a halt, and children are suddenly expected to function in an environment that goes against everything they’re genetically wired for. For many, the spark dies right here—long before they ever get to find out what learning could be.

Humans as Nature Made Them
Children learn best through experiences and impressions. They need to move, explore, touch things, and try for themselves. That’s how their brains work. Stillness and silence are the opposite of what they were built for.

Think about how you learned as a kid. You learned to ride a bike by falling and trying again—not by reading about balance. You learned to light a fire by messing around with it—maybe even burning yourself a little—and figuring out what actually worked. You learned about weather, animals, and people because you were out there, seeing, hearing, and feeling. Everything you truly remember is something you did, not something you just read about.

Then school enters the picture—and flips everything upside down. Kids are supposed to learn about the world without experiencing it. They’re expected to sit still for hours, fill out forms, and memorize rules. No wonder so many of them lose their spark.

When kids lose focus or get restless, it’s not because they’re trying to be difficult. It’s their body sending a signal—something’s wrong. This doesn’t suit me. And more often than not, the body is absolutely right.

The Body as a Learning Tool
Picture a typical classroom: twenty or thirty kids packed behind desks, all told to sit still and pay attention. Now think about how kids actually function. They learn by doing. They learn through movement, through trial and error, through engaging with the world. Their brains are wired for activity—not passivity.

Think back to how you learned as a child. You learned to swim by jumping into the water—not by listening to a teacher explain technique. You learned what happens when the ice cracks because you stood on it and felt it give way. You grasped balance, gravity, and teamwork through play—not through theory.

Are kids genetically adapted to the kind of teaching we see today—with stillness and memorization—or is it more natural for them to learn outside, through movement, hands-on experience, and physical activity?

Everything we know about human beings points to the latter. When children get to use their bodies, their concentration, memory, and joy increase. When they’re forced into stillness, their focus fades. The body speaks up. It grows restless not because the child is broken—but because the environment is wrong.

We need to stop viewing movement as a distraction. For children, movement is the very foundation of learning. When school ignores that, we’re asking them to learn in a way that directly contradicts how they were made.

The System Working Against Us
Everything in school, in practice, is about control. It's about order, silence, and structure. It might sound reasonable, but in reality, the system works against the children. When a child naturally wants to move, talk, ask questions, or test limits, it's seen as a problem. What’s actually a sign of life and curiosity gets interpreted as disruption.

School is built on an industrial model—designed to produce obedient workers, not creative humans. It’s built to maintain rhythm, not to develop individual thought. It suits the system—but it doesn't suit the kids.

And the results are obvious: Children lose motivation. They learn for the sake of grades, not because they’re genuinely interested. Many learn to do just enough to survive the day. And those who don’t fit the mold are given diagnoses, pulled into special ed, or put on medication—all in an effort to squeeze them into a framework that was never made for them.

Instead of asking what’s wrong with the child, we should be asking what’s wrong with the system. Because it’s not the child who’s out of balance—we are. We’ve built a system that no longer fits human nature.

Wrong Fuel, Wrong Diagnosis
We talk a lot about kids’ focus issues, restlessness, and diagnoses these days. But we almost never talk about what they're actually consuming—or what their daily lives look like. A child who starts the day with ultra-processed food full of sugar and not enough sleep is sent to school with the wrong fuel and a hormonal mess. When the brain and body are running on fumes, it’s no wonder the focus disappears.

Many of the kids labeled as “hyperactive” or “unfocused” aren’t reacting to school itself, but to the entire lifestyle that surrounds it. They don’t get enough sleep, proper nutrition, or physical activity. Then they’re expected to sit still for hours on end—and when they can’t, they become the problem.

It’s grotesque how the “solution” so often ends up being medication, instead of asking what the real cause is. Ritalin and similar drugs are used to suppress symptoms—not to solve anything. It’s the system’s way of keeping the classroom quiet, not the child’s way of finding balance.

A kid who moves isn’t “restless”—they’re alive. A kid who daydreams isn’t “distracted”—they’re thinking. When we try to suppress all of that, we’re teaching them that the body’s natural signals should be ignored.

School sees restlessness as a defect to be fixed. I see it as a warning light. A sign that something is wrong—not with the child, but with the environment we’ve put them in.

Parents Who’ve Handed Over Responsibility
These days, a lot of parents seem to think it’s the school’s job to raise their kids. It’s like the responsibility has slowly shifted from the home to the system. When a child acts out, it’s the school’s fault. When a child doesn’t learn enough, it’s the teacher’s fault. When a child lacks boundaries, it’s the school’s discipline that’s to blame.

But the truth is: parenting starts at home. School is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s there to support the child—not to take over. The school can offer knowledge, safety, and strong values, but the parents have to be the foundation. Without that, the child loses their direction—and no teacher can make up for that, no matter how good they are.

When kids don’t get what they need at home, they arrive at school off balance. And that’s not something a teacher can fix. The school ends up being a Band-Aid for a problem that really belongs in the family.

When parents expect the school to do the parenting, kids are raised to lean on the system. They learn to follow rules—but not always to take responsibility. I saw this myself when my daughter was in primary school—kids who followed instructions well enough, but were lost the moment no one told them what to do.

School can support, but it can never replace. When parents check out, the child loses their compass—and at that point, it doesn’t matter how much the system tries to compensate.

The Death of the Creative Human
When kids learn that the most important thing is doing what they’re told, they lose the spark to think for themselves. The school system has become so obsessed with order, control, and performance that it’s suffocating the very thing that once made us human—the ability to create.

Look at the kids who are always asking questions, coming up with their own ideas, who can’t help but try something new. They’re often the same ones being told to calm down, stick to the plan, and do what everyone else is doing. It’s tragic—because those are the very kids who might have gone on to invent something, build something, create something.

Creativity and initiative don’t come from memorizing and test-taking. They come from the freedom to explore, the ability to get back up after failing, and the drive to develop your own abilities. That’s where real ideas come from. But instead of nurturing that, we teach kids that mistakes are dangerous, and that rules always outrank curiosity.

A child who’s constantly being measured eventually stops thinking big. They learn to do just enough to get praise. And that’s how we lose the creative spark—not because it disappears, but because we trained it out of them.

School has become a system of reproduction, not development. It teaches kids to conform, not to challenge. The result is a society full of people who know every rule—but have no clue how to actually build something new.

School Must Work With Our Genes
Everything we know about humans points in one direction: kids learn best when they get to use their bodies, senses, and curiosity. And yet we keep forcing them into a system built for the opposite. We’re trying to make biology conform to bureaucracy. It doesn’t work.

School needs to be shaped around human beings, not spreadsheets. That doesn’t mean throwing everything out—but it does mean starting from a different place. Learning needs to return to something natural: more outdoors, more hands-on, more alive. Kids should be allowed to use their bodies as part of learning—not treated like they need to be controlled. Only then will knowledge stick—and happiness follow.

Honestly, I think we’d have a better society if the way kids learn in kindergarten followed them all the way up. The same curiosity, the same urge to explore—but with more depth and responsibility as they grow. Then we’d get more secure, balanced youth—and adults who aren’t afraid to think for themselves.

And let’s be real—looking around today, maybe that’s exactly what we need. Because way too many adults are still acting like they never actually left kindergarten.