ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with some of the important aspects of the personality of the teacher. It deals with the teachers’ roles in the classroom and variations in the pupils’ reactions to these roles. The chapter examines traditional teachers’ views regarding classroom conduct, especially contrasting their interpretation of what constitutes pupil maladjustment with the views of mental-hygiene experts on the same topic. It considers the interaction of parents and teachers as seen against the background of community standards and expectancies. The teacher, especially at the level of the nursery school, kindergarten, and elementary grades, is in large measure a mother surrogate. When pupils are discovered in minor or major sexual escapades of a more overt sort, suppressed teachers—men or women—may expose considerable emotional distress of their own regarding love and sex. The interaction of the pupils and the teacher is from the very outset influenced by a broad set of concepts and attitudes regarding their relations in the school situation.
