Fit to Teach

What the U. S. schoolteacher knows, reads, earns, believes and says has been elaborately examined and catalogued, but until last week no one had ever looked lim right in the teeth. Last week U. S. teachers were examined physically and mentally, from toe to cerebellum. The National Education Association reported on the results of examining 5,150 teachers in every section of the U. S. The report Fit to Teach, painted this composite picture:

P:The typical teacher, 38, with one or more dependents, is physically healthier than most other U. S. citizens. He or she is absent from school for illness only three days a year, is likely to live to a ripe old age.

P:Two-thirds of the women teachers never smoke, more than half never drink.* More than a third of the men do not smoke, nearly one-half are teetotalers, only 1% drink every day.

P:But the mental health of teachers is below normal. The average teacher is a worrier. Two-fifths of them worry so much that it interferes with their sleep and efficiency. Chief of their worries: lack of money. A large proportion worry about the unsatisfactory progress of their pupils. Relatively few worry about marital affairs.

P:The chances are 7-to-1 that in twelve years of public school a child will get two maladjusted teachers--either unstable and neurotic or downright psychopathic.

*For a scientist's comment on longevity, tobacco and alcohol, see p. 69.

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