by Bridget Webber

Created on: May 16, 2007   Last Updated: May 21, 2007

Students can learn many lessons from caged pets in the classroom. Many students do not have the opportunity to have their own pets at home and so the classroom may be the first place where they get the opportunity to engage with an animal on a more personal level.

Taking care of a pet takes time and responsibility, both of which are not usually immediately obvious to a child so they need to be taught this.

This can be achieved by children taking turns to care for the pet under the supervision of the teacher who will make sure that the correct procedures are carried out.

When caring for a pet at school it may also be the first time that some pupils have had to really take into consideration the well being of another. This can be a building block to help them to be considerate and develop relationships in later life.

The animals provide the students with affection which will encourage them to want to care for them and may lead to them caring more about animals in the future.

They will also gain an understanding and experience of the life cycle of animals, which will ultimately lead them to question our mortality as human beings and help them to understand the process.

This may mean tears when the pet dies, but this is only natural and needs to be experienced at some point and a class is a safe environment for experiencing emotions that other pupils are probably sharing too.

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