CHAPTER XI

NERVOUSNESS OF TEACHER AND PUPIL

Nervousness of teacher and pupil deserves special mention. So universal is this physical defect that we take it for granted, especially for teachers. Teachers themselves feel that they need not even apologize for nervousness, in fact they too frequently use it as an excuse for impatience, ugly temper, discourtesy, and unfairness. Children, slates, papers, parents, blackboards "get on their nerves." Nervousness of teacher causes nervousness of pupils and adds to the evil results of mouth breathing, bad teeth, eye strain, and malnutrition. These conditions, added to bad ventilation, bad light, and an overcrowded schoolroom, render the atmosphere thoroughly charged with electricity - nerves toward the end of the day. Lack of oxygen to breathe as well as inability to breathe it; lack of well-printed books and good light, as well as lack of the power to use them; toothache, earache, headache, deplete the vitality of both teacher and pupil.

Most of the disturbances at school are but outward signs of unwholesome physical conditions. If the teacher attempts to treat these causes by crushing the child, she makes confession of her own nervousness and inadequacy and visits her own suffering upon her pupils. A transfixing glance prolonged into an overbearing stare, a loud, sharp voice, a rough manner, are successful only so far as they work on the nervousness of her pupil. She finds that it is temporarily effective, and so by her example and practice sets the child an example in losing control of himself. The position often assumed by school children when before authority,

of hands held stiffly at the side, head drooped, and roving eye, does not mean control: it means a crushed spirit, hypocrisy, or brooding anarchy. The mother or teacher who obtains obedience by clapping her hands, pointing her finger, distorting her face, is copying in her own home the attitudes of caste in India, of serfdom in Russia, the discipline of the prison the world over, a modern reminder of the power of life and death or of physical torture.

A young college girl unfamiliar with the ways of the public school was substituting in the highest grammar grade. The time for civics arrived. Here, she thought, is a subject in which I can interest them. The boys showed a vast amount of press information, as well as decided opinions on the politics of the day. The candidates which they elected for the position of ideal American patriot were Rockefeller, Lincoln, and Sharkey the prize fighter. During the ensuing debate, which gave back to Lincoln his proper rank, the boys in the back of the room had moved forward and were sharing seats with the boys in the front. Every boy was engrossed in the discussion. The room was in perfect order,

- not, however, according to the ideas of the principal, who entered at that moment to see how the new substitute was managing the class, famed for its bad boys. With the stern look of a Simon Legree she demanded, "How dare you leave your seats!" When one child started to explain she shouted: "How dare you speak without permission! Don't you know your teacher never permits it? Every boy take his own seat at his own desk." This principal was far more to be pitied than the boys, for they had before them the prospect of "work papers" and a grind less monotonous and more productive than the principal's discipline. She was a victim of a nerve-racking system, more sinned against than sinning.

There is nothing in school life per se to cause nervousness. Given a well-aired, sunny room, where every child

has enough fresh air to breathe, where he can see without strain, where he has a desk fitted to his body and work fitted to his maximum abilities, a teacher who is physically strong and mentally inspiring, and plenty of play space and play time, there will be no nervousness. One who visits vacation schools is struck with the difference in the atmosphere from that of the winter day schools. Here are the same rooms, the same children, and in many cases the same teachers,

VACATION SCHOOL INTEREST: AN ANTIDOTE TO NERVOUSNESS

but different work. Each child is busy with a bright, interested, happy expression and easy attitude. Some are at nature study, some are weaving baskets, making dresses, trimming hats, knitting bright worsted sacks and mittens for the winter. Boys are at carpentering, raffia, or wroughtiron work. In none of the rooms is the absolute unity or the methodical order of the winter schoolroom, but rather the hum of the workroom and the order that comes from a roomful of children interested in the progress of their work. This condition only illustrates what a winter schoolroom might be were physical defects corrected or segregated, windows open, light good, and work adapted to the child.

Nervousness is not a monopoly of city teachers and city pupils. In country schools that I have happened to know, nervous children were the chief problem. Nervousness led in scholarship, in disorder, in absences, in truancy, and in backwardness. After reading MacDonald's Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, I became interested in one or two particularly nervous children, just to see if I could overcome my strong dislike for them. To one boy I gave permission to leave the room or to go to the library whenever he began to lose his self-control. My predecessors had not been able to control him by the rod. A few weeks after Willie's emancipation from rules, the county superintendent was astonished to see that the county terror led my school in history, reading, and geography.

Had I known what every teacher should be taught in preparation, the relation of eye strain, bad teeth, adenoids, overattention," and malnutrition to nervousness and bad behavior, I could have restored many "incorrigibles" to nerve control. Had I been led at college to study child psychology and child physiology, I should not have expected a control that was possible only in a normal adult.1 In its primary aspect the question of nervousness in the schoolroom is purely physiological, and the majority of principals and teachers are not trained by professional schools how to deal with it. Normal schools should teach the physical laws which govern the child's development; should show that the pupil's mental, moral, and physical nature are one and inseparable; that children cannot at one time be docile, sickly, and intelligent, — perfect mentally and imperfect physically. Until teachers are so taught, the condition cannot be changed that makes of our schools manufactories of nervous teachers and pupils.

1 The Unconscious Mind by Schofield, The Study of Children and their School Training by Dr. Frances Warner, and The Development of the Child by Nathan Oppenheimer show clearly the physical and mental limitations and possibilities of children.

Country nervousness, like city nervousness, is of three kinds: (1) that caused by defective nervous systems; (2) that resulting from physical defects other than defects of the nervous system, but reacting upon it; (3) that due to habit or to lack of self-control. Children who suffer from a defective nervous system should, in city schools, be segregated where they can have special care under constant medical supervision. Such children in schools too small for special classes should be given special treatment. Their parents should know that they have chorea, which is the same trouble as St. Vitus's Dance, although often existing in a degree too mild to attract attention. Special treatment does not mean that such children should be permitted to interfere with the school progress of other children. In many rural schools, where special privileges cannot be given children suffering with chorea without injury to other children, it would be a kindness to the unfortunates, to their parents, and to all other children, were the parents requested to keep such children at home.

Nervousness that results from removable physical defects -eye strain, adenoids, indigestion, earache - will be easily detected by physical examination, and easily corrected by removing the physical defect.

Preventable nervousness due to "habit can be quite as serious in its effects upon the mind and health as the other two forms of nervousness. Twitching the face, biting the nails, wetting the lips, blinking the eyelids, continually toying with something, being in perpetual motion and never relaxing, always changing from one thing to the next, being forever on the rush, never accomplishing anything, are common faults of both teacher and pupil. We call them mannerisms or tricks of personality. They are readily imitated by children. I once knew a young lawyer who had started life as an oyster dealer, whose power of imitation helped to make him responsive to both helpful and harmful influences. After