The Case for Classroom Pets

In a way, school districts might find that making their classrooms pet-friendly could result in an overall benefit to their school system.  More and more corporations are welcoming dogs and cats into the workplace, either on a permanent or monthly "pet day" basis.  Why?  In their article “Taking Your Pet To Work” for the Delta Society, Ellen Shay and Shauna Shipley note:

Because of the many health benefits of companion animals, allowing pets in the workplace can create a workforce that is happier and less stressed.  Being able to bring your pet to work is considered a desirable employment benefit by many people.  This can translate to less employee turnover and a more committed workforce.

Just think – if only our schools were more pet-friendly, boards of education across the country might find themselves retaining more qualified educators, paying less for medical coverage, and settling fewer union disputes… and all at no additional cost to the town's taxpayers!

What it all comes down to, of course, is really about the educational benefits of classroom pets.  Psychological and physical health benefits be hanged, in many school districts, it’s the almighty standardized test that holds sway over what goes – or stays – in the classroom.  Can pets be useful in direct relationship to delivering curricular goals and meeting national standards?  Of course!

People in general, from third graders to business executives, tend to devote their attention more completely and their efforts more fully to matters in which they feel a personal stake.  Classroom pets provide a specific, tangible, living and breathing focus for a multitude of lessons.  Over fifty five examples are cited later in this text, but in very general terms, classroom pets can become…

& Reading teachers – Children who love their class pet will read books about that pet’s species.

& Writing teachers – Class pets become the main characters in narrative fiction, subjects of expository essays explaining why one class pet is superior to another, allies in persuasive debate focused around ecological or animal-rights issues, and muses for poetry.

& Math teachers – Think living, breathing math manipulatives that can be measured, weighed, placed in word problems, generate statistics for graphing (how much food does our pet eat?  How much water does he drink?  Which is more?), and facilitate the learning of abstract concepts such as symmetry.

& Science teachers – Classroom pets and their wild relatives can teach about biology, zoology, ecology, physiology…

& Social studies teachers – Classroom pets can help demonstrate geography, the legal system (how do animal protection laws get passed?  What are the steps to electing an animal-friendly senator?), current events (animal stories in the news are always a hit), and complex comparisons of culture (why would wealthy societies own many pets while economically disadvantaged societies own relatively few?)

& Health teachers – Eating right isn’t just for humans any more!  Neither is exercising!

& Humane educators – Studies show that the way people treat animals often parallel the way they treat other humans.  Can students learn to respect all life with the help of a classroom pet?

Of course, it's easy to sing the praises of the classroom pet.  Is it, however, the best solution for ALL classrooms?  And could it, perhaps, have a darker side?

The answer, of course, is a resounding YES - but that's a topic for another post.

"The Bond"

In recent years, a tremendous amount of time has been spent studying what scientists call "the human-animal bond" - often simply The Bond - and its relationship to the mental and physical health of humans.  (So far, nobody has spend significant time analyzing the benefits, either mental or physical, to animals.)  Findings have been positive, and in some cases, amazing.   On a segment of its website dedicated to the health benefits of companion animals, the Delta Society – an international organization devoted to animal assisted therapy – cites studies profiling these benefits:

• Seniors who own dogs go to the doctor less than those who do not. In a study of 100 Medicare patients, even the most highly stressed dog owners in the study has 21 percent fewer physician's contacts than non-dog owners. (Siegel, 1990).

• Activities of daily living (ADL) level of seniors who did not currently own pets deteriorated more on average than that of respondents who currently owned pets. (Raina, 1999).

• Seniors who own pets coped better with stress life events without entering the healthcare system. (Raina, 1998).

• Animal-assisted therapy can effectively reduce the loneliness of residents in long-term care facilities. (Banks, 2002).

• Medication costs dropped from an average of $3.80 per patient per day to just $1.18 per patient per day in new nursing home facilities in New York, Missouri and Texas that have animals and plants as an integral part of the environment. (Montague, 1995).

• Pets in nursing homes increase social and verbal interactions adjunct to other therapy. (Fick, 1992).

• Having a pet may decrease heart attack mortality by 3%. This translates into 30,000 lives saved annually (Friedman, 1980).

If companion animals can so dramatically improve the life of senior citizens, it's not unthinkable that they might do the same for students and teachers.  Besides their ability to enhance a curriculum in every subject from science to reading, it's clear that animals can enrich the entire learning environment of a classroom. 

Studies show that ADHD students find animals calming and reassuring; simply watching fish swim in an aquarium provides practice in attention focus and calms hyperactive children.  Autistic children will make connections to animals that they rarely make to human beings, and animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is now a regular fixture in many special education programs dealing with autistic children. Emotionally disturbed children who cannot function in a mainstream school setting often thrive in animal-enriched special education environments. 

Students exposed on a regular basis to companion or therapy animals in the classroom benefit because these animals…

• provide social support and unconditional acceptance (Endenbug & Baarda), particularly to shy children or children “at risk.”

• facilitate the development greater self-esteem. (Bergensen, 1989; Kale, 1992)

•  help defuse potentially disruptive behavior. (Curriculum Review, 1993, Schoen, 2001)

• “…increase enthusiasm for school and learning, decrease disruptive classroom behavior, teach stress and anxiety management, (and) help children learn to value nature.” (Beck & Rudd, 2001)

Other studies not involving classroom pets but still studying the human-animal bond in relationship to children reveal findings of benefits transferable to the classroom.  For example,

• Children’s cognitive development can be enhanced by having a pet.  (Poresky, 1988)

• The presence of a dog during a physical examination decreases a child’s stress.  (Nadgengast, 1997, Braun, 1998)  It’s not farfetched to wonder, then, if the presence of a dog might help reduce test anxiety and raise standardized test scores!

• Children who own pets score significantly higher on empathy and prosocial orientation scales than non-owners.  (Vidovic, 1999).  As some children are unable to own pets in their own homes, the presence of a classroom pet might provide a welcomed substitute!

More specific are the benefits to children requiring special modifications or considerations in their educational programs.  Many therapy programs for children have long included animals as partners in this work, and studies show why:

• “In cases of severely disabled or mentally handicapped children, it has been observed that animals were able to induce behavior patterns not otherwise appearing.”  (Montagner, 1986, cited by Nebbe)

• Male juvenile offenders entering a resident facility showed a tendency to respond more openly and with less hostility to an interviewer when a dog was present during their interview. (Gronski, Peacock, and Ruckert, 1986)

• Emotionally disturbed students and autistic students are more likely to interact with animals in their environment than with people.  (Davis, 1986; Redefer, 1989)

Other studies listed by the Delta Society provide additional insights:

• Contact with pets develops nurturing behavior in children who may grow to be more nurturing adults (Melson, 1990).

• Children exposed to humane education programs display enhanced empathy for humans compared with children not exposed to such programs. (Ascione, 1992).

• Positive self-esteem of children is enhanced by owning a pet. (Bergensen, 1989).

What's more, a classroom pet – when it is also the teacher's pet – helps diffuse the stressors of working in a high-pressure, emotionally demanding environment.  For adults in general, an act as simple as holding and stroking a pet results in clear physical benefits – lowered blood pressure, reduced stress, deeper breathing, psychological calm.  In addition, 

• Pets fulfill many of the same support functions for adults and children. (Melson, 1998).  The logical follow-up question to this: would the benefits pets provide to senior citizens transfer to adult teachers and young students?

• Dogs in particular are preventive and therapeutic measures against everyday stress (Allen, 1991).  Could the “time out chair” more effectively defuse student stress-related “acting out” if a companion animal was there to sooth the misbehaving student?  Could teachers become more efficient problem-solvers and trouble-shooters if their stress levels were eased by a furry friend?

• Pets decrease feeling of loneliness and isolation (Kidd, 1994).   What teacher has not, on occasion, felt isolated and cut off from the rest of the world?  For students, loneliness and isolation are part of daily school life…

• Pet owners have lower blood pressure (Friedmann, 1983, Anderson 1992) and lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels than non-owners (Anderson, 1992).  ACE inhibitors lower resting blood pressure, but they do not diminish reactivity to mental stress. For hypertensive people, pet ownership can lessen cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress in combination with medication. (Allen, 1999).  Might this potentially reduce board of education costs in terms of health care insurance?

• Pet owners have fewer minor health problems (Friedmann, 1990, Serpel, 1990).  Could classroom pets reduce the number of sick days taken by over-stressed staff?

• Pet owners have better psychological well-being (Serpel, 1990).  More importantly, do students and teachers with “better psychological well-being” prepare more effectively for and perform better on standardized tests?  It would seem only logical!

Speaking for myself, during the time when I was permitted to keep mammals in my classroom, my four pet rats proved indispensable for giving me a "mental break" when I needed it most - or, tipping the hat to Bill Wallace's Calvin and Hobbes, giving me a dose of "fuzz therapy."  On one occasion, a staff development day had left me nerve-raw and emotionally seismic; retreating to my own room for lunch,  I closed the door and spent half an hour brushing, cuddling, and talking to my "boys," most particulalry my big brown male rat, Trickster.  Though he had no idea what the newest educational buzzword was, he seemed to know that something was intensely stressing his person… he nuzzled my hand, licked and "nibble groomed" my fingers, and settled into my lap to "brux" happily (bruxing is the rat version of purring). 

Needless to say, I returned to the workshop feeling more centered and capable than I had at the start of lunch.

What IS a Pet?

pet¹   n. 1.  An animal kept for amusement or companionship.  2. An object of the affections. 3. A person especially loved or indulged; a favorite: the teacher's pet.

(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Animals have been the companions and confidants of humans for millennia… they have been pictured on cave walls as hunting companions, carved in semi-precious stone and revered as deities, immortalized in verse and portrait.  The vast majority of world leaders through history, both famous and infamous, have had beloved pets; some of these pets took on celebrity status as great as their owners'.  Entire books have been written about presidential pets, and a well-known series of pet reference books includes a sidebar of celebrities who own each particular species.  For those who love their pet, a pet is not an animal – it is a confidante, a defender, a child surrogate, a best friend.

But what IS a pet, really?

When it comes to defining pets (though some prefer the term "companion animals"), personal definition is as broad and varied as the official line.  For some, a pet needs to be a domestic or tame creature that will interact with its human companions and display mutual affection and a desire for continued contact.  Dogs, cats, many birds, most small mammals, and some reptiles fit this bill.  For others, a pet is any creature under human care – it doesn't matter what sort, or if the animal shows any particular recognition of the presence of humans or not.  In this sense, caretakers often take greater pleasure observing their charges than actively interacting with them.  Most fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, and arachnids fall into this category.

For me, I tend to think of a pet as an animal with a face that will look directly at me with some hint of recognition when I approach it, who won't flee from my attentions.  My late, beloved classroom Betta, Spike, would swim to the side of his tank to look at me whenever I entered the room; Spike, in my opinion, definitely met the criteria for "pet."  Marge, the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach a former student of mine was so fond of, didn't appear to have a face, wouldn't look directly at her owner, and didn't seem overly fond of being picked up and handled.  She didn't meet my criteria – though she clearly met his. Vive la difference!

Pets go through fads… most dog lovers either eagerly anticipate or sneer at the annual American Kennel Club ranking of the most popular dog breeds (and in this, those who sneer may be in the majority – over half of all pet dogs in America are mixed breeds).  Exotic pets appear on the scene, then fade… there was a time when one could walk into a pet store and walk out with a monkey, alligator, or lion cub; these days, strict laws regulate many exotic pets, though new species arrive yearly.  In recent times, the Australian Sugar Glider, the African Pygmy Hedgehog, the Vietnamese Potbellied Pig, and American Prairie Dogs and Southern Flying Squirrels have all – at least temporarily- been billed as the latest in "trendy pets."

It's interesting to note that during a certain point in the 1970s, a number of Mexican beach rocks were considered the ultimate trendy pet.  To each his own – in many respects, a pet is what you make it.

This blog is dedicated to a particular sort of pet - the companion animals who inhabit our classrooms.  In proper circumstances, and with particularly understanding administrators, they enrich the learning environment of both teacher and student, reducing stress and enhancing the educational process.  In less than ideal circumstances, they are poster children for animal misery, kept in habitats too small, too filthy, too hot or too cold.  Their needs as unique species, different from the needs of the touchy-feely primates who seem to rule things, are overlooked.  And, in far too many situations, they are disposed of - given away to students, "surrendered" to shelters (though this term rankles, as it implies a reluctance on the part of the callous human) - when their usefulness or cuteness has passed.  Their lives are, too often, far shorter than they ought to be.

What follows in posts was my exit project for my Master's of Arts in Teaching - it was supposed to be a manuscript for a book, but the publishing world being what it is, no takers presented themselves.  In dusting off the manuscript, updating the info, and augmenting the original text, I'm hoping to be able to provide a resource for my fellow teachers still lucky enough to have pets in their classrooms - for better or worse, they are becoming an endangered species.  Who knows, if enough interest is generated, I may go the eBook route and give publication another try.