North Carolina community progress, May 5, 1924

              NORTH   CAROLINA
PUBLISHED IN   THE INTERESTS OF THE HOME. THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY
VOLUME  5.
MAY 5, 1924
NUMBER 13.
THE VISITING TEACHER
One of the interesting and promising developments within the public schools during recent years
is the work of the visiting teacher.
Social workers have realized that many of the
problems of juvenile delinquency, industrial inefficiency and other social maladjustments could and should
be anticipated in the school.
Educators have been aware that even in schools
representing the most advanced methods of teaching,
with the auxiliary service of attendance officer and
nurse, there are children who do not progress as they
should, and that the efforts of the teachers are being
brought to naught by undermining influences at work
outside the school walls or by faulty connection between the training within the school and the life outside. School failures or dissatisfactions are usually
symptoms of serious underlying causes which make
or mar the foundations for success in after life.
It has been realized that for effective education
the school must comprehend the whole child, mental,
physical and social—and that the home and school
must be brought into mutual understanding and cooperation. To meet this need the visiting teacher has
been added to the school staff.
How can unadjusted children secure the best and
fullest use of their school days? That, in a word, is
the question which the visiting teacher keeps continually before her. She seeks its answer in studying,
as far as possible, all the forces which bear upon the
lives of the individual children referred to her by
principals or teachers.
In practice, her special charges are those children
who present problems of scholarship or conduct of a
troublesome, erratic or suspicious nature, or who show
signs of apparent neglect of other difficulties with
which the regular staff of the school finds itself unable
to cope unaided.
Such children include those who have fallen below standard in scholarship, but who are not subnormal; those whose conduct is below standard and
who more or less show tendencies to delinquency; the
over-age who are restive in the class room, counting
the days until they "go to work," those who, finding
it necessary to go to work, need advice; the adolescent;
the indescribable, who are always in need of counsel;
the precocious  and  the  gifted children who  do not
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POSTURE  AND   DISEASE
Elizabeth  Clarke,  N.  C.  C.  W.,  '25
Health is absolutely essential to happiness and
success, and one of the factors most conducive to good
health is good posture. And what is good posture?
Ward Crampton defines good posture as "that position of the body which makes it possible far a man
to do his work, day in and day out, with no useless
expenditure of energy, permitting normal function of
all organs of the body." Any occupation or profession which men and women may engage in today requires mental and physical efficiency and the definition I have just quoted illustrates how far good
posture goes toward securing both.
The four essentials to good posture are: a high
head and chest; back straight and abdomen flat; but
how few people we see who have a really good posture
when measured by these standards. Bad, careless postures are common among people of all ages. A few
years ago young people cultivated what was known
as the debuante slouch and many have since found
to their regret that a style of posture cannot be changed as easily as style of dress and they are forced to
go through life with wretched posture and ill health.
Men, women, and children of ten acquire bad
posture as a result of bad seating which throws all
of the organs of the body out of their normal positions.
A review of a few of the bad results of incorrect
posture mav serve to show how very injurious it is.
It may affect every system of the body; skeletal,
digestive, circulatory, respiratory and nervous systems. Injuries to the latter may manifest themselves
in depression and a melancholy frame of mind.
In skeletal ptosis, or the downward displacement
of the bones, the head droops, the spinal curve is verv
marked and the chest is flat. The lungs are contracted and the unused cells are fertile spots for the
growth and activity of tubercular bacilli, thereby making the individual very much more susceptible to the
disease. The collection of blood in the abdominal
veins and arteries is another of the evils of bad posture, and still another is the displacement of the digestive organs and others located in the same region.
Among girls and women, bad posture often causes tilting of the fundus of the uterus which is crowded by
the intestines. Toxic substances are often formed
which lower one's resistance to disease.