> I think flat tables (and individual chairs) in schools can also be explained by an increased desire to reconfigure the classroom on the fly, moving tables around to make working in groups easier.
Absolutely: it probably mirrors (and likely imitated) the thinking about modular, open-plan offices which came into fashion around the same time too. To an extent it probably also reflects the arrival of Stuff on Your Desk into schoolchildren's lives as well: crafting activities and educational toys in the classroom, but also just more books and more papers than before.
(I'm not holding up C20 pitched school desks as a good example of pitched working surfaces: they were often cheap, sometimes even unstable, unadjustable and cramped, likely designed for someone a foot shorter than the poor eejit who was actually jammed into it. They were more like the sad fag-end http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/fag-end-18204918.jpg of a long tradition; I think they may have helped sour many people on the idea of pitched working surfaces.)
The term 'fag end' predates the cigarette by a couple centuries, at least in Europe. In figurative use, I am surprised to see it associated with cigarette butts; it's a very unusual figure, and I would have expected anyone using it to be aware of the (original) meaning.
I would be greatly surprised if more than 1% of UK respondants had any idea of the use of "fag end" as anything other than cigarettes and the metaphor.
Sorry, I should have mentioned. For anyone else reading, "fag end" refers to the end of a length of material such as cloth or especially rope. The short end of a rope which is left over from tying a knot is the "fag end". Another similar term is "bitter end", the end of a rope abaft the bitts, that is, the part that remains inboard on a ship.
Absolutely: it probably mirrors (and likely imitated) the thinking about modular, open-plan offices which came into fashion around the same time too. To an extent it probably also reflects the arrival of Stuff on Your Desk into schoolchildren's lives as well: crafting activities and educational toys in the classroom, but also just more books and more papers than before.
(I'm not holding up C20 pitched school desks as a good example of pitched working surfaces: they were often cheap, sometimes even unstable, unadjustable and cramped, likely designed for someone a foot shorter than the poor eejit who was actually jammed into it. They were more like the sad fag-end http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/fag-end-18204918.jpg of a long tradition; I think they may have helped sour many people on the idea of pitched working surfaces.)