A Carnegie Mellon study confirms what OCD teachers knew all along: a messy classroom distracts students. The study in the Journal for Psychological Science shows that heavily-decorated classrooms reduce student performance.
Following a presentation of the study, Public School Zero set up a committee to consider an intervention on second-grade teacher and cat-kitch collector Ms.Felinity. It was suggested that the faculty nominate Ms.Felinity to appear on the reality show Hoarders, but this was rejected by the Chair of the committee for creating too much paperwork, as well as being unkind.
There was so much clutter in Ms.Felinity’s room that the class cat had been missing somewhere in the classroom for over a week, and a PTA mother threatened to report Ms.Felinity to the ASPCA. When the cat finally reappeared, the committee gave up on the intervention and ordered a set of 20 anti-clutter curriculum guides for Ms.Felinity and placed a tracker on the cat. Data on the tracker revealed that, unbeknownst to her, the cat snuck into Ms.Felinity’s truck and went home with her every evening, but a veterinary visit failed to show any illness or neglect.
Another PTA mom, frustrated with the situation in her son’s classroom, sent out a group email with a link to an article about how cluttered spaces reflected mental health problems and suggested that Ms.Felinity was not in a fit state to teach her class. After a flurry of angry emails, another PTA mom, who is also a psychologist, pointed out that women are held to higher standards of tidiness than males, and that the classroom of the Chair was in fact more cluttered than Ms. Felinity’s room.
More emails followed and questions were raised about whether it was safe, or even legal, for the Chair to display his encyclopedic collection of miniature ceremonial swords in his classroom. Another committee was formed by PTA parents and a decision was made to pressure the school district to use a new federal grant to tear down the decrepit wing where both the Chair and Ms. Felinity have their classrooms.
An investigatory panel found that black mold was slowly infiltrating both classrooms from the frequently flooded basement, and the entire wing was closed off by the Board of Health. When the class cat could not be found at the time the hallway was sealed, the Chair offered to break into a window of Ms.Felinity’s classroom to retrieve the cat and many PTA parents felt that romance was in the air.
** Starred Letter of Outrage**
To The Editor of the Public School Zero Newsletter:
I am one of the “PTA moms” referred to in this post and, yes, I am also a psychologist. Both my motherhood and my professional dignity are undermined by the offhand way I am described by the anonymous author. Throughout the post there is an underlying assumption that mothers are annoying complainers whose concerns are both petty and catty. The very use of the word “PTA” as an adjective summons a dated stereotype which participates in the devaluing of women and of motherhood. When my professional credentials are narratively parenthesized in the midst of an assumed “cat fight,” the sexism is all the more clear.
The fundamental question raised by the problems in the hallway of Public School Zero that has been closed by the Department of Health is this: should we consider clutter as a reflection of poor mental health (in this case the mental health of the teachers), or should we focus on clutter as a cause of psychological stress (in this case for the students)?
While recent studies suggest that clutter reflects mental illness (and even predicts dementia), there is also ample evidence that clutter is a source of anxiety. People who cause clutter have higher cortisol levels, and people respond to clutter with cortisol spikes. But women with cluttered houses usually suffer from other environmental burdens, such as carrying the load of housework and family on top of paid external work, or suffering from a history of childhood or domestic abuse. Women see their messy houses as signs of failure to live up to cultural feminine ideals, and their biological stress reaction to mess has a strong cultural element. It is not true that men notice mess less than women, instead studies show they are less stressed by mess because they don’t expect to be judged for it. (See “The Simple Reason Men Do Less Housework Than Women”.)
In the case of our school, Ms.Felinity was judged for her messy classroom while the Chair’s messy classroom went unremarked even though his clutter was much more dangerous. Ms. Felinity suffered both public and private humiliation over this ongoing controversy, while the Chair has emerged as a hero. As a matter of fact, the classroom cat in question originally lived in the Chair’s room, but when he forgot to feed it over Thanksgiving Break, the cat moved down the hall to Ms. Felinity’s classroom. Before we judge the Chair too harshly, however, it should be noted that he has suffered from years of mysterious illnesses which affected both his mental health and his physical health. In retrospect, the underlying source of the Chairs’ illness was undoubtedly Black Mold Poisoning. Ms. Felinity also suffers from asthma, which may have been caused by the mold at Public School Zero as well. This is a textbook case of the deeper environmental roots of clutter and the need for a larger solution than the shaming of individuals.
While I respect the opinion of Dr. Martha Bexby, mother of Samuel in Grade 2, who was not quoted in the above post, I cannot agree with her widely circulated statement that “the root cause of clutter is the culture of acquisitive capitalism and runaway materialism which corrupts our schools.” In this case, the failure of the school district to build a new wing or even spend the federal dollars offered us suggests a deeper dysfunction where capitalism kills its own.
Rumors, spread by other “catty” females, that the Chair and Ms. Felinity have chosen to take early retirement and move to a cabin in New Hampshire with their class cat, are all true. Ms.Felinity has set up a very profitable Etsy shop where she and the Chair trade in his ornamental swords and other collectibles. While I agree with Dr. Martha Bexby that the self-hatred and anxiety many women feel about their clutter is fueled by the unattainable Instagram purity of celebrity homes cleaned by an unseen army of underpaid and exploited workers, it is heart-warming to see that sometimes capitalism has a happy ending.
Sincerely,
Jane Know, PhD
Mother of Tyler, Grade 2, Public School Zero
PTA Finance Committee Chair
Also Read: Sexist To-Do List Controversy