The following article appeared in the April-May 1952 edition of Canadian Home and School. Edits have been made in accordance with ATA style.

May 4 to 10 is Mental Health Week, sponsored by the Canadian Mental Health Association. At this time, the public needs to know the alarming fact that 57,000 people in Canada are currently in mental hospitals. Acknowledging that most mental illnesses do not strike like lightning but have a long history, and that thousands of people not presently hospitalized would benefit from psychiatric help, parents and teachers must ask the question, "What are we doing to address this serious problem, particularly with reference to children?"

Schools are influential in our society, and they have realized to varying degrees that one of their most important responsibilities is to provide a safe physical and psychological atmosphere conducive to learning, creative thinking and democratic living. The appropriate atmosphere, and the effect that it has on children, depends to a large extent on school staff, parents and community attitudes. It goes without saying that teachers who may be emotionally unstable, tense and anxious are unlikely to have a very positive influence on the mental health of the children they teach. Similarly, parents who fail utterly to understand and apply principles of good mental hygiene in their own lives, particularly in their relationships with their children, can succeed in frustrating to a large extent the most enriched and enlightened school program.

Let us put ourselves in the shoes of one of our teachers. She comes to school some days fed up with teaching and thinks, what's the use? She looks at her classroom and everything seems wrong. There are too many children—the aisles are crowded, the desks are rigid, it is noisy and sometimes there are not enough places to hang coats—and she wonders, what good am I doing anyhow?

She reads books and they tell her that children need things like space, time, easels, blocks, creative material, attractive books, pictures, sunshine and individual attention. She looks at what she has to work with: countless forms to fill in, rows of children, interruptions—a child, a message, a call from the front office. She feels hemmed in by dos and don'ts and confused by the conflicting theories brought to her attention: frills versus core knowledge, a child at school is a receptacle for adult-selected "facts" or a human being learning how to live with himself and with others. She has nagging doubts about whether she should really be teaching.

All of us—teachers and parents alike—have days like these. All of us experience moments when we wonder whether we should have been parents.

Sometimes the reason is simple: lack of sleep, the beginning of a cold, an argument the night before, a criticism that seemed unjust. Sometimes the feelings have long roots, all the way back to childhood. They vary from our fear of not being liked or loved to the desire to be important and recognized, to belong, to want to be perfect.

It is important to recognize that teaching and child-rearing are closely related. The entire field of teaching is ever-expanding and still holds many mysteries. How do children learn? What makes them change their behaviour? What changes a “wild child” of six into a world citizen of 21? What has to go on inside a person so that he ends up civilized? Nobody really knows, and nobody does the perfect job—no teacher, scientist or parent.

Our wars, crime, poverty and divorce; our suspicions and our antagonisms; the way we fight and hate each other—all these tell us that we fail.

Everyone is still stumbling around with two central questions: what is worth teaching, and when should you teach it so that it will stick? Art and science, we feel, should be combined, but there are still few master teachers. Even the best ones sometimes fail and get aggravated and worn out.

It is important to recognize that both parents and teachers may not be able to do the perfect job. The odds may he heavily stacked against them. They may lack too many of the basic ingredients with which to build: good housing, good health, employment security or helpful community resources. Nevertheless, all of us can do something. Every teacher can, and every little bit helps. Together, as fellow citizens, we can work together to improve our community. We will probably not noticeably change the world in our brief lifespans, but if we strengthen the home and school atmosphere for our children and improve community resources, we can help them to face and cope better with the stresses of tomorrow.

To this end, communities must work toward the development of school programs that will make happy, well-adjusted children, programs that will recognize individual differences, the part that interest plays in the learning process, the need to experience success, and the numerous insights that have been gleaned from research and clinical experiences in the field of child development.

Teachers need the support, understanding and partnership of parents. Parents need the same from teachers. Upon the shoulders of both, as fellow human beings, heavily rests the struggle for the emotional strength of our future generations.

One of the chief functions of the Canadian Mental Health Association is that of assisting parents and teachers in performing the greatest of all tasks—effective child rearing.