THE TEACHER’S VACATION.
Your school term has closed. Vacation is here. How shall you spend it?
That is the question.
Rest. That is the proper thing to do. Rest does not mean idleness,
however. Why are you tired? The merchant works twelve months in the
year, six days in the week and more hours in a day than you do? The
farmer, the mechanic and others do the same. They are glad to get
a week off once a year, and many of them do not get that. Why are
teachers so completely worn out at the close of the term? Why are
they so pale, so nervous? Why do they so often count the weeks, then
the days, and at last the hours before the term ends? Is there a
teacher of five years’ experience who has not at some time been guilty
of such counting? Is it the hard work? Is it the lack of agreeable
surroundings? Is it want of pure air and exercise, or is it worry?
Freed from anxiety, and to the lover of the work, teaching is neither
dull nor exhausting. The actual mental energy spent in teaching by
most teachers is not great. It is seldom that they give long continued
mental effort to one subject during school hours. In fact, the worst
drawback to teaching to one who seeks to be a scholar in the best sense
of the term, is that his attention is continually divided. He cannot
concentrate his mind on one subject long enough. He must divide his
time between government and the teaching process. For this reason,
those who wish to be scholars rather than teachers seek to teach in
the universities rather than in the primary or secondary schools. Here
they may specialize. Here their class work is free from government
proper. Their students are mature. The mature thought of the student
stimulates the teacher and the investigator. They are growing into ripe
scholarship instead of directing younger pupils in the elements of
subjects.
We may safely say it is not the unusual amount of thought devoted to
teaching that gives pallor to the cheek of so many teachers at the
close of the year, nor do we believe it is altogether due to unpleasant
surroundings. School houses are in many places far from inviting.
Two or three churches with stained glass windows and pretty homes of
comfort and refinement are often found near the most dilapidated old
tumbled-down school house, and a shame it is. But the teacher who
is master of the situation and a leader of children, can do much to
overcome this. Clean buildings and grounds with some good walks and a
few trees and flowers will follow as a result of a good teacher after a
few years in almost any school.
The teacher, too, usually secures room and board with a good family
where they may have comforts equal or superior to their own home.
Teachers are always welcome to the best society--it may not be the
low-necked, high-heeled variety--but the best and most substantial.
The best homes welcome them as guests and the biggest fat apples are
laid--an honest and worthy tribute--on the teacher’s desk. Churches
and societies in rural and village schools always welcome the teacher
with pleasure, and the teacher is lacking in mixing qualities who
does not get access to all the comforts and pleasures the community
affords. Their standards may not be your standards, but their honesty
and unconventionality will make up for much. One of the inexpressible
pleasures of teaching comes when you can lose your own selfishness
in your own quiet devotion to duty in the community. The worn-out
condition of the teacher, if she has the ability to adapt herself
to reasonable conditions, does not come from lack of congenial
surroundings.
Lack of fresh air and exercise may count for much. Many school-rooms
are poorly ventilated. Teachers standing breathe more impurities than
pupils seated. The windows should be slightly lowered at the top and
the room frequently flushed with fresh air for the benefit of both
teachers and pupils. Then most teachers do not take enough exercise.
Do you play at recess? Whether it is advisable to play with your
pupils or not depends upon your own power. Can you play with pupils
without sacrificing or compromising your dignity? Some persons can, and
others cannot. Some gain the good will of pupils by playing with them,
others lose it. You must know your own ability. Games in which you
can excel usually count in your favor. Games in which the pupils can
greatly excel you, are not apt to add to your standing or reputation
among pupils. But whether you play or do not play you should spend an
hour or two each day in exercise in the open air. A brisk walk to the
postoffice, an hour of work in the garden or with flowers, or the care
of chickens or anything which gives you exercise in the open air and
calls your thoughts from the work of the day is beneficial. The work
must be congenial, but the labor must not be so strenuous as to sap
your vitality. It should be of everyday occurrence, and yet so that in
extremely bad weather the time may be shortened. An hour of work in the
open air in something in which you have a genuine interest will put
life and vigor into your school work.
Worry kills. Relieved of all worry, the teaching profession would be
ideal, and yet worry springs almost all together from the imagination.
The teacher goes to school in the morning scared for fear of trouble.
A feeling of dread that something is going to go wrong, that some
calamity is about to befall, hangs over the teacher. She fears to look
out of the window or to step out on the playground for dread she will
see something wrong. It is this dread, this feeling that something
awful is going to happen, this worry which causes the pale face and the
nervous condition of the teacher at the close of school.
Then so many teachers never get the confidence of their school. They
are looking for open defiance or open rebellion at any minute. They
prowl about to find something going wrong. They tip-toe and sneak on
the pupils, confident always that pupils are plotting against them. It
is no wonder that pupils delight in annoying such a teacher. They stop
the recitation time after time to reprimand Johnnie in the back part
of the room. They pace the floor like a hyena in a cage, looking for
trouble. Let me suggest that if Johnnie is disturbing the recitation
to such an extent that something must be done that you let Johnnie do
the walking instead of yourself, and let your rebuke or punishment
be severe enough, and sincere enough, and complete enough, and yet
reasonable enough, that you will never have to stop the recitation
again to reprimand him.
Good common sense and self-control should be brought to bear on your
duties, and as an aid in making steady your nerves. As responsible as
the school-room is, pupils are not going to run off with the building.
Neither are they going to do anything unpardonably bad. Their youthful
faults and follies will be forgotten by you, and the neighborhood
too, in a few years. So what is the use of wasting the nervous force
and energy which ought to be directed towards the teaching process in
needless worry for fear something will happen.
You ask, “How can I help it?” You can help it:
_1. Use your will to control your mind._--You have read of the
soldier who found his knees trembling. Stopping short and
looking at them he said: “If you knew where I was going to
take you you would shake worse than that.” By centering his
mind upon other things he gained control of his shaking
knees. You, by exerting your will, may learn to calm your
fears.
_2. A large part of your nervousness comes from feeling that
you are not well prepared for the work._--You fear that
something will come up which you do not understand. You
are not right sure whether you can answer the questions
you are going to ask the class in to-day’s lesson. You
feel that the problems and questions of the school-room
are going to come to you as a surprise. The best remedy
for this is to study and plan and organize your knowledge
of the subject; to read carefully and critically but with
discrimination the plans, methods, devices and experiences
of other teachers. These may be found in journals and books
on methods and plans of teaching.
_3. Your vacation, while they should be free from worry and
unnecessary work, may be seeding time for storing up
many helpful things which will prevent worry in the
future._--Read a few good thoughtful professional books.
Question the plans and methods mentioned. Make clippings
of those things which will help you in the future, and
keep them in scrap-books, classifying these that you may
readily turn to any topic wanted. What stores of knowledge,
what amount of worry may thus be avoided by planning for
the future. Not only this, the planning itself will give
pleasure as its own reward at the time, with compound
interest in the future. Think over and plan and systematize
your work. Yes, I hear you say that you cannot plan then
so that you can use it the next year. You must revise your
plans, it is true. A plan is much more easily revised than
constructed anew. No teacher can use a plan over and over
without revision or adaptation to the individual class.
But during vacation is the time to make collections of
material, storehouses as it were, to interest your class
for next year.
_4. Do not neglect the rest and recreation and inspiration that
comes from a week at the county institute or a few weeks
at a good summer school._--The acquaintances made, the
inspiration received, the thought-producing ideas gained,
and the feeling of professional fellowship engendered is
worth many times its cost. With a vacation rightly used you
may come out of your next school term with more energy and
more physical strength.
It is the worry of the school-room that kills. Teachers must overcome
the worrying habit or succumb to its baneful influence.