Chapter 1: Basic Needs

“The air is unfit to breathe in nearly 15,000 schools” (27).  This is one of the many startling facts given in the first chapter that suggest that we are not giving our students productive learning environments.  The information given through the facts and studies present the idea that many learning environments actually hinder the learning ability of many students.  If we want children to have the best possible education we need to supply students with healthy environments.  This means that we cannot allow for faulty air ventilation, chemical cleaners that make kids sick, and we most create spaces that foster creative thinking in students.

The quote that starts of the first chapter states, “I am entirely certain that 20 years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could have tolerated anything so primitive” (John W. Gardner).   Gardner said this in his book No Easy Victories, and the reason this is important to understanding The Third Teacher, is because we cannot continue to put students in danger everyday they go to school when school is supposed to be a safe environment for students. The Third Teacher shows the importance of students to feel safe through Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” (34).  This theory states that there are 5 needs that must be met for optimal growth.  The most important is physiological needs, the second safety, followed by belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization (34).  Therefore if a child cannot feel safe due to the environment they are forced to learn in, how can we accept them to have a “healthy development” (34). 

This chapter does not just tell us what is wrong with our school system but it gives us positive ways to fix the problems, and examples where people have succeeded in creating a positive learning environment.  Schools must commit to “make health and safety a classroom project and develop lesson plans that will produce real improvements to the learning environment” (39).  One example was making sure everyone is involved in this process from teachers to janitors, even students; everyone must work together just like a school in Canada.  The school had everyone testing the air quality; they even turned it into a project for the students.   Other ideas included cleaning schools with chemicals that can make kids sick.  This chapter expressed the safety needs that are not addressed as much as they should be.

“A society that honors its young its young is one that has a chance of creating a humane, peacemaking, sustainable culture.”