Clean Surroundings
It follows that a teacher who is trying to meet every requirement of the true teacher will not allow his school-room or the premises to be unkept, unclean and unsanitary. The room and premises will be in keeping with the teacher. The question is this: if a teacher possesses every element of a good teacher, but allows the school-room and premises to be unkept and disorderly, will it affect the character of the work? It will to an extent. As was stated in the introduction to this book, every factor in the child’s surroundings has some influence. We simply can not expect to encourage order and system in a child’s school work if that child is in the atmosphere of disorderly surroundings. Just as a well-cooked meal would lose much of its appetizing effect, and possibly even be rejected, if it were served in an unclean place, so a teacher’s good influence may be lost to a considerable extent through carelessness about details and lack of proper attention to the general appearance of the room.
“The master of a school who found that the boys misused the halls, scribbling on the walls, throwing things around carelessly, breaking the glass globes of the gas jets, and playing rough games, changed the situation, not by making new rules or devising new punishments, but by improving the halls. He reformed the manners of the boys by repainting the dingy corridors, hanging them with attractive pictures, and improving the general order. For order invites order, and the perception that the school authorities care for the comfort and the pleasure of the children calls out a quick response.”[[8]]
In the school-room, the spirit of work will be enhanced by pleasant and orderly surroundings. Orderliness in the arrangement of school equipment, including definiteness of instruction given, will beget order in the pupil’s work and habits. It will go further; it will transplant itself to the child’s home, where order will be established, because the child’s life is being moulded in the school-room. Whatever influence is at work to better the homes in any way, is a most worthy influence.
However small the school-room may be, it is the duty of every teacher to see first of all that the room is clean, the seats and other furniture dusted and a few well-chosen pictures on the wall. No teacher is so poor that he cannot afford a few simple pictures for his school-room. Then a vase of flowers on the desk and one in a window will add charm. Much better would it be to have several potted plants in the school-room. They add freshness to the looks of the surroundings. It has been suggested that pupils can bring pictures from their homes, thereby saving that expense for the teacher. The author believes it is a poor teacher, indeed, financially and in spirit, who can not afford several pictures for his school-room. His pride would be at a low ebb, and no doubt, it would be well for him to read articles on the value of pictures. In this connection it is worth while to consider the custom of relegating that which does not appeal to one. The children will bring from their home such pictures as the home does not prize. Will such pictures have an æsthetic value?
[8]. Sneath and Hodges, op. cit., p. 190.