Pets in the Classroom

In theory, having pets in the classroom sounds like a great idea. Children will learn the proper care of animals, some of their lessons can be centered around the classroom pet, and children will want to come to school everyday to see their little friend. However, what works in theory does not always work in real life. In practice, children might not be learning the proper care of animals. Instead, they might be seeing an animal receiving substandard care and will go on to think that that is okay. While lessons can be centered around the classroom pet sometimes, at other times the pet might be a distraction. Some children also may have allergies to the classroom pet or to the diet of the class pet. Children with allergies are not going to be excited about going to school so that they can be miserable there. The classroom pet and the children could suffer.

Many parents would like their children to know the proper way to behave around animals and how to care for them. While not every family is going to be able to have a pet at home (due to financial reasons, a family member's allergies, or a plethora of other reasons), there are other ways to teach these values. Everyone probably has at least a few friends with pets. Humane societies and rescues often do educational activity days for children as well. But sometimes teachers and schools take it upon themselves to teach children about pets. It sounds like a good idea because it will give the kids a hands on learning experience. However, children might not be learning the proper care of animals in the classroom. Some animals make better class pets than others. A lot of teachers choose rabbits as pets for their classrooms. However, rabbits really take up a lot of space. They can also have bad habits such as spraying urine, lunging at people, and biting. Some of these habits may be curbed considerably by spaying or neutering the rabbit. Whenever I've seen rabbits in classrooms however, they've always been in small cages instead of large pens and they haven't been fixed either. So rather than the children learning that rabbits require a large amount of space, can live over 10 years, and should be altered, they learn that rabbits can be kept in small cages with little care involved. When these children later get a pet rabbit (either as a child or later as an adult) they might remember their experiences with the class bunny. The bad pet care principles learned in school have now been passed on. It is not necessarily the teacher's fault that the cages are small, they might be limited by a smaller sized classroom. However, if a teacher is not going to be able to properly care for the classroom pet, perhaps they don't need that type of pet in the classroom.

While lessoned centered around the classroom pets may be fun, there are many times when students should be concentrating on their studies. I remember back in school many classrooms had pet hamsters. These mostly slept during the day as they are nocturnal, but sometimes one would get on the wheel and make a racket as it exercised. Guinea pigs are also potentially noisy pets. Although guinea pigs can't run on wheels, they can be quite noisy as they are vocal animals. If the classroom guinea pigs are hungry, they won't care whether a test is in progress or not. In addition to pets being distracting by running around or squeaking, pets in the classroom can also be very distracting to those students with allergies. Many students are going to be allergic to furry pets such as guinea pigs. If the students aren't allergic to the guinea pig itself, they may be allergic to the hay that is essential to its diet. Even if the teacher gets a pair of guinea pigs during one year where no students have allergies, it will be hard to guarantee that no students with allergies to guinea pigs or hay will come through her doors during the guinea pig's 5 to 8 year lifespan. In many cases, the teacher does not want these pets as his or her personal pets. If the classroom pets aren't going to be thought of as the teacher's personal pets however, their future is unknown.

The classroom may be a dangerous place for pets as well. Not all students are going to be equally careful around pets. Some students will be more coordinated than others. Once in a science class I took as a child, someone picked up the pet leopard gecko and accidently dropped it on the floor. Leopard geckos can survive such falls. However, another child wasn't looking and quickly stepped on the poor gecko, killing it. It isn't the children's fault for being uncoordinated. Teachers can't be watching the classroom pet at all times, they have many other things to be doing. However, leaving children unsupervised with animals can be a very bad idea. In addition to the pet being subjected to dangers in the classroom, the pet often has other dangers to face as well. Many teachers don't take home the classroom pets at night. At night one of the pets could have an emergency that requires immediate veterinary care, an emergency that would have been noticed if the pet were at home. The air conditioning or heating may also be shut off after children have left the school, leaving the animal to suffer in potentially extreme temperatures. Pets may also be left in the classroom over the weekend, or sent home with inexperienced students. In preschool, there was a guinea pig kept in a 10 gallon aquarium (far from even close to being a proper guinea pig enclosure). Every weekend, the teacher sent the guinea pig home with a different student. She gave the students a bag of bedding so that the cage could be cleaned. With a cage that small, it should have been cleaned twice a day. However, most students would just send it back and wait for the next person to clean the cage. Teachers should take the responsibility of ensuring the animals have clean cages if they chose to bring pets into their classroom. While some teachers do treat the classroom pet as one of their own, many do not. If the classroom pet falls ill, the teacher might not want to spend $100 or more at the vet. However, children should not have to just watch a pet suffer and die. It would be a good lesson to take the pet to a vet and show the children that pets require commitment. But since the classroom pet is generally not technically owned by any single person, no one is going to take the responsibility to pay the vet bill unless the teacher views this animal as his or her own.

Many schools have now been realizing that pets shouldn't be in the classroom. Parents might actually know something about rabbit care and complain to the school board about substandard care of the classroom rabbit. Parents who have children with allergies may also complain. There are some great solutions for still teaching children about pets in the classroom, without actually having pets permanently in the classroom. Students can bring in their own pets for show and tell and give reports about them. Teachers can often find rescue groups that are more than willing to come into their classroom and do a presentation on proper pet care. One local school here has children donate food to the humane society and then the shelter brings several different types of animals over and does a fantastic assembly. The shelter volunteers show the children proper dog training, how to handle exotic animals, and tell them why they should have their pets spayed or neutered. Children are then able to learn proper pet care from experienced people who deal with animals on a daily basis.

I don't think teachers get a classroom pet with the intention of making the animal suffer. Many parents probably even ask about adding a pet to the classroom. Having pets in the classroom really does sound good in theory, but when you get down to it, in practice things usually don't work out so well. Students aren't going to learn good lessons about pet care when the classroom pet is receiving substandard care. Most pets also have lifespans greater than the school year, causing problems for future students with allergies in addition to causing problems if a school board decides school pets should no longer be allowed. A classroom environment can present hazards to the pets as well, which are unnecessary risks that the pets should not be forced to endure. There are many wonderful alternatives to helping students learn about proper pet care. Having students learn about pet care through pets in the classroom just isn't the best method.