The 23 kids in Todd Davis's fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School, in the Elizabethtown Area School District, have a seemingly simple assignment:

Build a chair that can hold their weight.

Every Monday since September, the kids have spent an hour and a half working on their Sitting Machines, as the project is called.

After months of talking, drawing, testing ideas, making models and learning from mistakes, the kids are actually putting their sitting machines together.

They spill out into the hallway, each student intently working, with the smell of liquid nails wafting through the open windows.

The large pieces of heavy cardboard that were once confined to the corner of the class are becoming the legs, seats, backs and support systems for each student's chair.

But that's not really what thrills gifted education teacher Debbie Smith, who is overseeing the class with Davis and filmmaker Jerry Greiner.

"It's not about the chair," she says with a smile as she cuts a piece of cardboard for one of Davis's students. "Not really."

It's about geometry and engineering. It's about learning to measure accurately. It's about creativity, making designs and solving problems. It's about learning how to deal with mistakes and building confidence. It's about keeping records and expressing feelings in a journal each student keeps for the project.

"It's about learning in a different way," Smith says.

"It's awesome," says Montana Thompson, 11, of Elizabethtown. "It's all coming together now. You're really aware of how everything works. And if you screw up something, you have to go right back and fix it because if you ignore it, it won't hold you."

A number of the kids noted that they are learning just how important precise measuring is and how mistakes have consequences.

"I like seeing what's necessary and what isn't," says Reuben Zeiset, 11. of Elizabethtown. "I'm learning geometry, math, and converting to metric."

And, at this step in the project, how to caulk, a skill that everyone can use sometime in their life.

"Math is becoming a lot easier," Davis says. "They're thinking more creatively."

Smith first took on the sitting machine project a decade ago, when she ran the Lancaster Athenaeum, a private school that used an inquiry-based Socratic method to teach.

She was looking for an unusual project that would involve art and design and she asked her friend Greiner, who had run a design firm, to be the instructor.

"I like unusual ways of learning," says Greiner. "I was interested in creativity, in children's learning process."

He also liked the idea of a project that would actually create something practical.

"I'd heard about a chair project, but it was more art based," Greiner recalls. "I thought about how children never make anything real and useful."

That first sitting machine project was a huge hit with the kids, and with Smith and Greiner.

"I was stunned at how well it went," says Smith. "You could see the different approaches to the project; the kids who are methodical and the kids who came from the artistic end first."

And how each way of thinking worked.

"We knew it was a fun project," says Greiner. "But we found out it really provokes children's ingenuity and brings out the best in them. Many parents have commented that their children will now do anything without trepidation."

Fast forward to 2006. Smith, who closed the Lancaster Athenaeum in 2000 and was now working in the Elizabethtown Area School district, ran into Greiner at a party.

He had just finished his documentary, "One Buccaneer," about the Hole In the Wall's puppeteer, Rob Brock and his family, and was looking for a new film project.

The two began talking about the Sitting Machine.

It was, time, they both agreed, to resurrect it.

"Debbie said this was the kind of project they needed," Greiner says. "She said children were being cheated out of their education with the No Child Left Behind Act, but that administrators had no choice They must get the test scores. (We both felt) this would be an excellent course to incorporate. It would make learning dynamic and challenging, and it would help with the test scores."

So last year, at Rheems Elementary School, the Sitting Machine project was reborn. And a movie was made.

Kids in Smith's gifted class tackled it and Greiner filmed them over a period of months. He worked on the film with director Paul Hunt and co-producer Julie Kauffman.

Now being edited, the film will be submitted to film festivals in the fall.

"The film has laugh-out-loud humor," Greiner says. "It's a lot of fun. The kids are wonderful and there are warm moments of self discovery."

But Greiner believes the film can do more than help his own career. He believes it can open up the Sitting Machine project to schools across the country.

"When I talk to parents about it, they look at me and ask 'Why aren't my children in that course? Why doesn't my school have something like that?' So we'd like to take the next step."

Greiner believes the film can show educators and parents just how valuable the project is and how it might work in their schools.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be a chair," he explains. "It's the formula that works."

He has compiled a list of academic standards from the Pennsylvania Department of Education that are met by the project.

Those standards cover a range of subjects, including arts and the humanities: reading, writing, speaking and listening; mathematics, and science and technology.

Greiner wants to be able to distribute the film to educators and is asking for contributions to help finish the film and promote it.

He was accepted into the Independent Documentary Association's Fiscal Sponsorship Program, which helps people contribute to various films. (Their Web site is www.documentary.org.)

Sandra Ruch, the executive director of the International Documentary Associations has said the organization sponsored the film for two reasons: "the filmmaker has demonstrated high professional standards and the project promises to be a contribution to both the media arts and cultural history."

In the meantime, the class at Fairview was a kind of test to see if an ordinary fifth-grade class could see the same results.

Both Smith and Greiner agree that it's a huge success.

"Teachers have expectations about kids," says Greiner. "They know who will do and who will ponder. What's great about this is that the children are working in complete parody. There is no leader, no follower. No hierarchy."

Anyone who would like to make a contribution, or see a preview of the film can go to www.thesittingmachinemovie.com.


Staff writer Jane Holahan can be reached at jholahan@LNPnews.com or 481-6016.