Maddie Werner

A new and improved desk in room 210.

Multiple English classrooms around Libertyville High School have implemented a highly successful idea where teachers are cutting tennis balls open and sticking them on the bottoms of student desks to decrease noise when moving the desks across the floor.

 “The tennis balls have GREATLY reduced the noise in my classroom,” said English teacher Ms. Kristen Kuceyeski in an e-mail, referring to the recent classroom change in room 260.

 With a quick glance into just one of the three classrooms with the new update you will see the new desks which seem to resemble a walker or rollator, the device created to help out seniors and the disabled. Walkers commonly have tennis balls on their legs to enable the user to slide the walker across the floor more easily.

 Contrary to this familiar use of tennis balls, putting them on student desks has become quite popular after English teacher Ms. Dyan Naslund came up with the idea. Ms. Naslund created the idea after becoming so aggravated with the noise created by the desks moving.

 “So once I started turning things over in my head, I thought about a soft ball and then tennis balls came to mind,” Ms. Naslund said.

 The idea is spreading to other classrooms as teachers realized the advantages of this.

 “I stole the idea from Ms. Naslund,” Ms. Kuceyeski shared.

 Although the new design requires a surprisingly high effort to cut the tennis balls, this idea has been successful according to students and teachers who have moved the revised desks. With much collaborative group work, especially in English classes, kids are moving their desks around quite frequently: “My students probably move their desks at least three to four times a week into groups,” said Ms. Kuceyeski.

 The noise without the tennis balls is quite loud and bothersome to students trying to work when they hear screeching and slamming of loud desks. Junior Maria Speck jokingly said, “the noise is horror to my ears,” referring to her classroom that does not have the update.

 The noise produced from moving desks cannot only be heard within the classroom itself, but neighboring rooms below and to the sides seem to be bothered by the disruption as well. This new design provides a decrease in noise and creates a much smoother and faster process for students who are moving their desks into groups.

 A few students’ desks in each of the classrooms have yet to receive tennis balls on their desk and Ms. Kuceyeski says her students “complain that their desks don’t have the upgrade.” Rarely do teachers and students agree upon new changes, but this innovative method is satisfying among all and even has kids begging for the advanced desk.

 Ms. Kuceyeski joked with her co-teacher Mrs. Mary Kate Schoenbeck that “we should patent the idea and sell it to all school and teachers!”

 The convenient update seems to be free of complaints and working very smoothly. Tennis ball manufacturers probably never would have imagined their product “serving” desks and not the tennis courts.