Dogs in Schools: Animal-Assisted Therapy to Support Students
Oasis, Pixel, Naya, Platon, and Silou aren’t new acronyms favored by the Department of Education, but rather the names of five Golden Retrievers that have been part of pilot animal-assisted therapy programs in schools for several years.
Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier and Laura Nicolas, University of Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC)
Although relatively new in schools, this practice has a long history in the medical field, and the presence of animals has proven to be a major asset for people with disabilities or who require care—not only in terms of physical and physiological benefits and preventive care, but also asa tool for education and socialization.
The current interest in this educational approach highlights the emergence of a new perspective on animals and a different way of thinking about education. This practice, which involves introducing domestic animals into school settings, is already yielding significant results in terms of student well-being, the school climate, and learning outcomes.
Benefits for children's social skills
The presence of animals in the classroom is subject to regulations as well as an understanding of animal welfare. In the case of animal-assisted therapy, the animals involved are pets, and legally, there is no prohibition in the Education Code regarding their presence in schools.
The law of July 30, 1987, grants access to premises used for professional, training, or educational activities to guide dogs and service dogs accompanying individuals who hold a disability card. The law of November 30, 2021, aimed at combating animal abuse and strengthening the bond between animals and humans, enables experiments in school settings which, as they expand, are giving rise to an initial institutional framework.
Research on children and animal-assisted therapy conducted by François Beiger, Marine Grandgeorge, and Céline Barrier has demonstrated the benefits of the bond between animals and children. The findings of other scientific studies focusing more specifically on the presence of animals in the classroom show that this has a very positive impact on children’s well-being and development.
First and foremost, pets can help children develop social skills, better manage their anxiety, and foster empathy. By playing with a pet, children learn to care for others and communicate with their peers.
Pets are also said to promote relaxation and concentration in children and help them better understand their own feelings. Indeed, children are encouraged to pay closer attention to those around them and to better understand how they feel when interacting with an animal.
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Finally, this type of interaction is believed to foster problem-solving skills. Teachers can incorporate activities involving pets into their curricula to help students succeed and to promote communication, oral expression, reading, and self-confidence. Animal-assisted learning can thus serve as a central theme throughout a project.
Take the animal's perspective into account
Regardless of the setting and the target audience, animal-assisted intervention involves at least three participants: the beneficiary or beneficiaries, the facilitator—often the teacher in a classroom setting—and the animal selected for specific qualities relevant to the context. In most studies, the focus is on the benefits to the beneficiaries. This anthropocentric perspective needs to be broadened to take into account the well-being of each of the participants.
Thanks to a better understanding of animals’ physiological and psychological needs, there is a growing focus on their well-being in therapeutic settings. Animals are no longer merely effective partners in children’s development; they are now regarded in their own right as sentient beings with emotions directly linked to their interactions with the child or children. Adopting this perspective is essential to ensuring positive coexistence and interactions for everyone.
As a result, the classroom can sometimes be noisy, and the children’s constant attention toward the animal may tire and stress it out. Teachers should be attentive to signs that the animal is uncomfortable and provide it with a quiet space where it can retreat, which the children will respect. Every animal is a unique individual, and this uniqueness is something to be discovered together with the children. Beyond general knowledge about the needs of the animal species chosen to share life in the classroom, it is daily life alongside the animal that will allow us to discover its personality, its preferences, and what bothers it.
Marie-Laure Laprade, a schoolteacher and president of the association Éducation Éthique Animale, promotes animal-assisted therapy in schools while offering a number of recommendations:
“For a guest animal in the classroom to thrive, it is crucial to consider the biological and behavioral needs of its species, to understand the specific history of that particular individual, and to learn how to interpret its expectations, preferences, attitudes, and reactions. This is truly about learning to ‘live with’ the animal. I therefore have serious reservations about having an animal in the classroom if this initiative is not conscientiously prepared in advance, placing the animal—as much as the students—at its center.”
Adherence to certain rules and showing kindness toward the animal partner are therefore essential for this experience to be beneficial to everyone, and at the same time, they set limits on the widespread adoption of this practice.
To move beyond initial experiments while avoiding an overly widespread adoption of this practice, it is therefore necessary to train both teachers and the animals themselves, as is done in some countries. Initiatives are beginning to be implemented at the school district level.
Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier and Laura Nicolas, Associate Professor of Language Sciences and Education Sciences, University of Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC)
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