THE TEACHER WITH THE VEIL

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29268, 28 July 1960, Page 13

THE TEACHER WITH THE VEIL

IBy

ELSIE LOCKE]

For years, there was a mystery that eluded my inquisitive mind. It began the first time I saw a small child walking off hand-in-hand with the dental nurse, laughing and talking, with every appearance of pride and confidence in her beaming face. This little scene was such a far cry from my own remembered time before the School Dental Service came into being, the time when a visit to the indifferent dentist in a small country town was only one grade better than suffering the toothache. Nowadays it is rare for a child to even know what the toothache feels like.

How is it—l asked myself—that today’s child behaves towards the dental nurse as if she were another teacher? When I found the answer it was devastatingly simple. She is another teacher. You and I, easy-going parents that we are, may think the nurse’s purpose in life is to patch up the holes in our children’s teeth.

Her real job is much broader. As far as she is able, she is out to see that those teeth are strong and serviceable for life, since they mean so much to our allround health, good looks, and wellbeing. To achieve this aim, she must educate the children to value and care for their “ivpry castles.” As educator, she plays Innumerable themes on a two-string fiddle. One string is the correct use of the toothbrush and concerns both technique and regularity. The other string is a good diet, with foods that build and cleanse the teeth taken at proper meal-times, without inbetween snacks of sugary and starchy “extras.” This teaching is done both individually and collectively.

Before a class of children is taken, one by one, to the clinic for six-monthly examinations, the nurse goes into the classroom (by agreement with the teacher) and gives a lesson. She knows how to do this, because as a student nurse she was given a

course of instruction at the Teachers’ College, and afterwards went out with two or three fellowtrainees to city schools, where her style was observed and reported on by teachers of both primer and standard classes. When she is halfway through the treatments and again when all the children have been seen—and perhaps on a surprise visit three months later—she repeats her lesson. This class teaching has two results. On the one hand* the children are learning about their teeth, and on the other they are learning to know the nurse. In any case, she is continually seen about the school and playground and she is present at special ceremonies tike the annual, break-up or the infants’ Christmas party. Once she is familiar to them, the

game in which the dental nurse provides the right answers. These projects will be taken by the nurses when they go to their own clinics.

All this training would seem certain to give a nurse "dental health education on the brain"; but there’s inspiration added, too. Much of this comes through the dental tutor sisters for health education, who assist in lecturing at the training schools, and who visit field nurses in their clinics. Under their live-wire supervision, the nurses are thoroughly brushed up on the practical side of classroom teaching, are given stories and lessons for various age groups, and make their own work books incorporating their own ideas. And the nurse has other ways of playing on her two-string fiddle. In classroom and clinic she can use books, games, posters and models. Some of these, like the posters and the. storybook “Pamela Goes to Fairyland,” are provided by the Health Department. Other aids she may make for herself. The cotton-wool snowmen which good boys and girls bring proudly home are the best known to parents. It surprised me to discover, when I began investigating this mystery of the dental nurse’s power over the child, that among other things she is an artist. Yes. she goes to art classes at the Technical College as part of her first-year training. This is aimed at developing the dexterity of her hands and it also stimulates her imagination. In her second year she makes her own project for dental health education. I have seen these projects dis-