By Lynette A. Hart
H
ow can there be such contradictory uses of animals in science classrooms? The juxtaposition of a classroom pet loved by children beside freshly dissected animal specimens, is perhaps hard to absorb and understand. Despite the availability of various guidelines for animal use that can be provided or adopted by school districts, the range of animal use in education has virtually no limits, because no governmental regulatory body oversees husbandry of classroom pets or uses of animals in instruction.
Learning with Live Animals The ubiquity of classroom pets reflects children’s compelling interest in animals and the enjoyment of watching them and learning about what they do. These are often small animals, such as mice or guinea pigs, and, despite posing challenges to teachers for their care over weekends, vacation days, and summers, they are commonplace in classrooms. Many
16  2011 Humane Teachers for Humane Students
teachers like what living animals add to the classroom environment. A new practice emerging in classroom and library settings is allowing individual children to read to a dog. As the children read aloud, the visiting dog quietly attends, helping to calm anxiety that may occur in typical classroom settings. For the child who is reading, the dog is a non-judgmental audience who facilitates relaxed reading, even for children who are struggling to learn how to read. In a supplementary program offered to at-risk and low-performing intermediate school students in Los Angeles during three-week vacation periods, children teach dogs basic obedience commands at shelters, and also participate in group discussions related to conflict resolution. We found that these children, who are exposed to daily violence in their neighborhoods, increased their knowledge of pet care and the needs of animals, and also became less fearful of dogs, as compared with children not participating in this program.1
PHOTO By Veer
A Tail of Paradox: Learning to Care vs Animal Dissection