When I first started school prep school in 1958, prep students sat at small tables on wooden chairs. These tables and chairs reminded me of children’s furniture sets. The tables had drawings of animals on the square table top which sat four students. The tables were set in a diamond shape so everyone could see the blackboard.
One of the punishments for talking was being made to stand on your chair as a form of embarrassment and also making it easier for the teacher to apply a ruler to your legs without having to bend down to you. I wonder if that was a forerunner to the first industrial workplace safety laws!