Recreation for Teachers; Or, the Teacher's Leisure Time (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II REDUCING THE STRAIN OF TEACHING For the conditions which have been disclosed, there are three possible remedies: the school may be improved so as to reduce the strain; the teacher may be better prepared for her work, so that she will not find it so difficult; or there may be fuller provision for recreation. There can be no really satisfactory solution that does not take into account each of these remedies. Hygienic Conditions In any profession where there are so many breakdowns, despite a short day, and so much absence on account of sickness there must be something unhygienic in the conditions of the work. As the children and the teacher are living and working under practically the same conditions, we must suspect that a system which breaks down the teacher is also a source of strain for the children. There is no possibility of providing wholesome conditions for children without also providing wholesome conditions for teachers. Anything which will aid in the solution of the one problem will aid in the solution of the other also. It may be remarked that conditions are very much better now than they were forty or fifty years ago; that our school buildings have been wonderfully improved; and that the sanitary arrangements now provided were not even dreamed of at that time. Our curriculum, also, is much more varied, and a majority of the subjects are more interesting and are better taught than they were a half century ago. This is all true; but we must remember, on the other hand, that fifty years ago the large majority of the teachers and children were in rural schools which were in session only three or four months during the year. With such a short year, and in the country, neither teachers nor pupils need suffer under the strain of a program which is ver...