All of us would agree that children’s success at the beginning of their educational journey is pivotal. Many educational systems also have arrangements that allow them to identify children who would benefit from early intervention to not fall behind at the beginning of their educational journey.
But we must ask ourselves questions if these systems, which have not changed as much over a long period, are working. In the United States, if children are not doing well academically, either as writers, readers, or in math, they are put in remedial groups to work with them on skills they are not mastering. Usually, even the youngest children do not really like going to these group activities because they know that the reason they are in those groups is that they are weak academically. They can tell they are singled out.
For a couple of years, together with a wonderful elementary school teacher, Lucinda Ormiston, I’ve been involved in innovating in animal-assisted education to see if therapy animals could be incorporated more creatively into children’s learning to become more than therapy animals and take on a more involved role of teaching assistants, within their preferences of activities. What we have seen because of our simple but creative innovation surpassed our expectations. We have published a book about it and have been presenting at conferences and other venues because we want parents, teachers, and administrators to know what is possible to achieve.
Of course, every time the therapy animal appears in the classroom, such an interaction already changes the way children feel, which influences their attitude toward learning, because even petting an animal makes children feel safe and happy. But so much more than this simple interaction can be done as many therapy animals are playful and can do and want to do more than sitting down, lying down, or walking around the classroom.
One of our first activities with a small group of children struggling with math was using Carmel’s kibble. Each child received a handful of my dog’s kibble, a math fact to solve, such as addition and subtraction, and was asked to use dog food to manipulate its pieces and come up with the correct answer. Children had so much fun with this idea. They also knew that my dog would check if their answers were correct by coming over and eating all the kibble from the plastic trays. If my dog ate all the pieces, that would mean the answer was correct.
In a different activity, children played hide and seek with my dog. To this day, I remember the unbelievable excitement on their faces when they learned that they were going to hide, and my dog would look for them. This activity released so much joy in these children. Before hiding, each child received a math fact that they needed to solve. Of course, they were extremely delighted to solve this math fact because once my dog found a child, the child told my dog the answer. I have never seen so much excitement on children’s faces as they were telling the right answer and getting confirmation of correctness from Carmel by wagging her tail or sitting down. Even a child who had very serious behavioral issues transformed and became engaged and creative.
Last year, we worked with a very small group of boys whose math skills were very weak. One of the boys was always sad in the classroom, but when it was time to come to the math group, his face lit up when he found out that Carmel was going to be present. One of the activities we did with these boys involved laminated leaves and laminated circles. When a student picked two or three leaves off the floor and showed them to Carmel, Carmel would naturally sniff one of the leaves, which indicated that she picked one of them for the child to use. The students were already very excited because their favorite therapy animal picked a math fact for them. After that, they solved the addition or subtraction and matched the addition with an answer on the laminated circle. After a student matched an addition or subtraction with the circle, he called Carmel and asked her if it was correct. As my dog usually wags her tail or sits down, this was a very clear indication that the answer would be correct. The boys were enthusiastic, “I am right because Carmel just sat down!”
We observed several outcomes of including my therapy dog innovatively in children’s learning math. First, this inclusion completely changed children’s attitudes and motivation for learning a subject they struggled with. They wanted to participate in learning that included their dog as a teacher’s assistant. They also wanted to put more effort into trying those math facts. They were even entertained throughout the whole activity and at the end did not want the activity to stop. We also noticed that this type of teaching influenced us as educators. We were both entertained as well and excited to see the children’s enthusiasm. I remember when I told Lucinda that I didn’t see these children struggling in math because they were doing so well when my dog was helping them. Seeing children learning math while they moved around, interacting with their teaching assistant-therapy dog, was transformational for all of us. Children became much more successful in math and started liking it because fun, especially fun with animals, can make any subject interesting. Lucinda and I were equally delighted because seeing happy children who wanted to learn is what teaching is about.
Based on our observations, I conclude that the most important aspect of improving education for struggling children might be allowing children to experience learning differently.
Having a furry friend who joins children in innovative but simple ways makes this transformative learning experience possible.
Co-author, Lucinda Ormiston is an experienced teacher. She’s currently teaching fifth-grade children. Her educational experience includes teaching third, fourth, second-grade, and remedial math. Together with Barbara Vokatis, she co-created the dog therapy/literacy lab and co-authored Teachers and therapy dog teams: Innovative collaborations to make a difference for children.
