Relationship matters….relationships matter

This post was first published on Pedagoo.org on September 9th 2015.

I think that, strictly speaking, Pedagoo is  meant to be about sharing classroom practice and I therefore have to start with a confession; I am currently not classroom based. Those who know me well will know that I have mixed feelings about this. While I am loving my secondment to the local authority central team, I am missing the contact with pupils. But that for another post…

Last week I had the tremendous good fortune to attend three fantastic events within two days. On the surface, the events appeared to relate to three quite different themes. The first was our launch of our Authority Self-Harm and Suicide guidance. The second was a learning session for support assistants on behaviour, delivered by two representatives from Education Scotland. And the third was a day of Leadership training for Argyll and Bute Headteachers. Having had time to digest and reflect on the sessions, it has struck me that there were two key messages common to all three.

The first is about the absolute crucial importance of relationships in education. Ged Flynn from Papyrus, the suicide prevention charity talked about the need for us to make ourselves available to anyone who is struggling to cope. By really listening to the person’s story and helping him/her to find strategies to manage the difficult parts of life, we can literally save a life. Giving the person the time and space to connect with another can make all the difference. Sam March from Education Scotland talked about the vital concept of nurture in helping a young person who is struggling to achieve. He spoke of the ‘turnaround adult’ who can provide a consistent, reliable and predictable relationship in a child’s life. Nurture is about more than being kind to a child; it is about having high aspirations and a willingness and skill to challenge the negative self-image or internal working model that has developed in that child. And Andrew Cubie, on leadership, stressed the crucial importance of getting to know and understand those you are working with and leading. He explained that we need to invest time in getting to understand others, in understanding their DNA and ‘clicking’ with them. He said that the chemistry of a relationship is crucial and that if you are faced with someone whom you initially find difficult, you have to work at understanding them better if you are to succeed together. He advised taking time to “talk out the issues, strategic and other” and to make the difficult relationships better.

This idea of the need to work at our relationships resonated with me. If I have had success as an educationalist, it seems to me that it is often because I have taken time to work at the ‘difficult’ relationships, whether that be with pupils, parents or colleagues. Often another person may present as ‘difficult’ because they represent a different viewpoint and experience to our own; we need to dig deep and look at what that experience is. Thus the ‘difficult’ child who cannot behave may be communicating distress or needing a different type of attention to the others in the class. The ‘difficult’ parent who rages down a phone about the faults of the school may be struggling to cope with a child at home and need the chance to express and work on this. And the ‘difficult’ colleague who resists implementing change for the better because ‘the old ways are the best’ may be feeling hugely insecure about her own capacity to change and need the support of a colleague to take things forward.

I have to confess that Andrew’s talk made me realise that I have probably been more tolerant of ‘difficult’ pupil and parent characters in the past and quicker to criticise colleagues where I have felt them to be putting up barriers. My note to self is to invest more time in developing these relationships and listening more intently to these colleagues in future.

And so to the second key thread touched on by all the speakers I heard last week. This related to the idea that, in order to function successfully as leaders of others, or indeed of our own lives, we need tools and structures that assist us with self-regulation. This might seem obvious; if you do not feel in control of yourself and you aren’t the leader in your own life, then you risk that things won’t go the way you would have wanted. But it struck me that all three speakers mentioned the conscious need to put structures in place around this and not to take them for granted.

Ged Flynn spoke of the need to create plans with young people in distress so that they have strategies that they can draw on to keep them safe. Sam March talked about the need for restorative, solution focused work that clearly identifies interventions that will enable children to move forward. And, perhaps most interestingly for me, Andrew Cubie spoke about his belief in personal development planning. He said that he writes a personal development plan in relation to each project upon which he embarks and it is against this that he judges his personal success within the project. I was surprised to hear that someone with Andrew’s vast experience would feel a need to do this but it also re-iterated to me the importance of attending to our personal self-management. This is not the stuff of therapy or a reactive approach to crisis but the pro-active stuff of life and education.

All three speakers also talked of the need for us to take care of ourselves if we are to provide support and positive role modelling to the children and young people with whom we work. Creating regular opportunities to think about our priorities and values is part of this. So what has stayed with me above all after attending these events? That relationships matter and should be at the heart of education, not seen as secondary to learning but as fundamental to learning. Building positive relationships with others but also building a positive relationship with our own self are crucial to our professional and personal success.

It is not that I didn’t ‘know’ or believe this before;  as a former Dramatherapist I have read the books on Emotional Intelligence, Why Love Matters and the rest. But hearing these three inspiring speakers has reminded and re-enforced the message, giving me the confidence to put it back at the heart of what I do and what I invite others to do.

Ged Flynn is Chief Executive of Papyrus, the suicide prevention charity. Sir Andrew Cubie is an independent Consultant. He was variously Chairman and Senior Partner of a number of law firms, including Fyfe Ireland LLP, having specialised in Corporate law. He holds a number of non-executive Directorships. He has been engaged in education issues throughout his professional career.Sam March is a Development Officer at Education Scotland.

Advertisements

Why we need to teach and talk about mental health in schools? For ResearchEd Scotland 2018.

Yesterday I was a speaker at ResearchEd Scotland and talked about the reasons why we need to teach and talk about mental health in schools. The text and slides from what I said are below. It being me, I went a little off text at times but I managed to say most of what I had planned. Where text is in brackets, it means that I did not get to say it due to time constraints.

Today I am going to talk about why I believe we need to teach and talk about mental health in schools. Some people like to argue that mental health education should be the remit of parents or health professionals or trained staff, but I would argue differently.

I think that there are 5 key reasons why talking and teaching about mental health must be part of our work in schools and they will be at the heart of what I talk about today.

To start, then, with the first.

This is the World Health Organisation definition of mental health and I really like this. When we look at this, we have to question why there is stigma around talking about mental health. How is this any different to the broadest aims for education that any of us would aspire to achieve?

And in fact, in spite of all the recent wranglings about the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence, there is a huge resonance between the WHO definition and these capacities. I would not want to work in an education system that has anything else at its centre.

But just to return to this slide for a moment, although I love this, I do have a slight issue with one word here and that is the word “normal”:

 

When we talk about mental health we need to remember that there is no normal; my mental health is not necessarily yours. What is important is that each one of us understands what we need to do to keep mentally healthy.

 

But now to my second reason from my earlier slide:

For a long time now, we have been bombarded with press reports suggesting an unprecedented crisis in teenage mental health and calls to urgent action. But, is the crisis real?

Back in 2016 there was a report that basically told us that things were pretty bad for our teenagers.

If we weren’t feeling pessimistic before we read this, we probably would have been afterwards as it did not contain a great deal of good news.

My response to this and similar reporting in the Guardian on what they referred to as  Generation K was to write a blog post where I argued that just maybe, things weren’t quite as bad as the reporting suggested.

It all got me thinking about a lesson that my dad once taught me. It wasn’t one of those life lessons that takes place over a camp fire and stays etched in your memory for ever but rather a literal lesson; my dad served a double purpose in my life for a while as father and economics teacher. I had a brief flirtation with economics in sixth form. I started off doing A Level EPA (economic and political affairs) but being hopeless at maths sent the economics the same way as both physics and a career in medicine had gone a year previously. I decided to settle with an O level in economics and went on to do straight A level politics. However, I remember that dad …or rather Mr Bell…talked in an economics lesson about the fact that within our lifetime we would experience a shift in working patterns as technology created efficiencies that would result in more leisure time. The leisure industry would grow and people would work less because tech and IT would make it possible to achieve tasks in less time.

I do remember wondering about the subtle difference between having more leisure time and being unemployed…..however, there was clearly an economic model underpinning the ideas.

So, where has the Generation Leisure, forecast in 1986, gone? Seemingly, instead having more time and leisure in which to have fun, we find that  “British teenagers are among the most troubled in the world”: of the 42 nationalities surveyed in one report, only Macedonian and Polish teens were less happy with their lot.” It reported that we have teenagers crippled by anxiety; about debt, about terrorism, about social relationships. But in fact the article did then go on to give some hope, pointing out that teenagers generally also value authenticity, connection and friendship but it was hard to find this amongst the gloom.

There is no doubt that we live in a society that should have more free-time and where technology has created efficiency. Take a practical example. In 2016 I was studying for the Scottish ‘Into Headship’ course which required me to read a lot of academic literature. Twenty years ago, this would have probably required me driving to Glasgow (2 hours each way), going to a library, checking out each and every book and article (because they would have been the type that you could not take home), sitting and reading each one and taking copious notes. I cannot begin to calculate the time that this would have taken; time away from family, dead time travelling, time finding parking, time stuck in traffic. Today, I can click on a link in a virtual library and the book is here, on my laptop. I can read parts of it, go and put on a load of washing, come back to it, add notes electronically, spend an hour on a family walk, come back to it again.

Hours of my life have been saved in this way. I have hours more time that I can spend on leisure, with my friends and family, relaxing, meditating, right?

But actually, no. Because those hours that I have gained have somehow been hi-jacked by other things; learning Spanish, exercising, cleaning the house, trying once again to sort the finances. Doing, doing, doing……worrying, worrying, worrying.

Because the reality is that free time is SCARY. And space and quietness are times where the mind can ask those disturbing questions:

Who am I?

What is life all about?

Who do I want to be?

I would argue (and I know that others have done it more eloquently) that these questions are particularly disturbing in our now largely secular society where God, the church and the state no longer provide the majority with answers to questions about the meaning of life.

And so instead of trying to provide secular answers to the meaning of life and self, we have created a religion of busyness.

And in my 2016 blog, I suggested that it was not just an issue in the world of young people and education. Read Ariana Huffington’s book ‘Thrive’. Read or watch ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’ by Allison Pearson. And listen to John Lennon’ s ‘Beautiful Boy, written as long ago as 1981, where he said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

In my 2016 blog, I also went on to talk about the fact that what we may have come to label as a crisis of individual mental ill-health is perhaps in fact more of a societal dis-ease that education can help to play a part in addressing. Surely, as educators, parents and people, we need to encourage Generation Leisure to learn how to live and be happy in the life they have.

To know themselves and their minds.

To self-regulate.

To live with uncertainty and understand the things they can be certain of.

To embrace the best in social media and to reject the rubbish.

Back in 2016 there was a growing movement who were working hard to take this forward. They included the ‘#teacher5aday group, the #optimisticEd group, those who are fighting to raise the profile of PSHE (including Dr Pooky Knighstsmith @PookyH) and of course the man who now goes by the title ‘my favourite Doctor’, Dr Tim O’Brien and his book ‘Inner Story’; you can read my review here: http://staffrm.io/@lenabellina/LDzWUOXAjW.

My blog finished with a reference back to Mr Bell and economics. Another lesson led me to the work ‘Leviathan’, written by Thomas Hobbes in 1651 which referred to the state of mankind, when unregulated, as “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Over 300 hundred years later and, even though we haven’t left the EU yet, our lives (at least in the Western world) are far from this. Yet, reading about Generation K and the crisis in teenage mental health in 2016, and we might have been led to believe that they are.

By 2017 we were still reading more of the same:

 

And this summer, we got this:

 

I don’t deny that provision in the UK for children and young people who are highly distressed, suicidal and suffering mental illness are woefully inadequate and I have been fairly relentless in my campaigning to improve things.  It hasn’t always won me friends or helped my career prospects. But when I see austerity impacting on the wellbeing of children and leading to the deaths of children then I will not keep quiet.

Children with acute mental illness need specialist support an often they need it urgently, or they are at risk of death.

I don’t disagree with reports like this when they are evidence-based and if they help raise awareness that we need to talk. But I also think that we need to be clear what we are talking about. Teenagers have always suffered from emotional difficulty; it is part of being an adolescent and it is really important that we acknowledge that and talk about it as teachers and as parents/carers. For more on this, check out the pioneering research being done by neuroscientist Professor Sarah Jayne Blakemore and others in her field. We also need to ensure that we don’t create a crisis of “mental illness” or teenage depression by somehow turning normal emotions into something pathological. In perhaps the greatest and most popular study of teenagers ever, Shakespeare presents adolescence in all its terrible, emotional beauty; “Romeo and Juliet” deals with the issue of teenage suicide.

Last week we had this in the news. The slightly heart-breaking but also inspiring revelation that chirpy, positive Ruth Davidson suffered as a young person but hasn’t let it hold her back:

Now, not to labour the point, there was clearly some degree of teenage mental ill health back when Ruth was younger, a good 20 years ago when there was no social media and none of the associated pressures.

And back when this young university student was smiling on a German statue around 30 years ago there was also a lot of turmoil and mental distress under the smile:

Maybe more of her later…

If we look at the various articles I have referenced above or other sources to find suggestions as to the cause of the ‘crisis’ that we are facing, what do we find?

Well, social media gets apportioned a lot of the blame, that’s for sure (we hear about its alleged impact on body image fears, perfectionism and the fear of missing out) but actually what we know is that social media is still in its relative infancy in terms of robust and longitudinal research into its impact. Much as we THINK or FEEL that young people are more body conscious because of social media, we don’t KNOW.

In fact, if you follow the right you-tubers as a teenager on social media, you might, in fact, discover a whole tribe of like-minded individuals who make you feel better about yourself and your body, rather than worse.

What we DO know is that the ability of young people (and adults) to SWITCH OFF and have time away from connection with others is hugely reduced by social media and that this is likely to be affecting our thoughts, emotions and relationships.

We do know that technology is likely to be having a worrying impact on the quality of people’ s sleep in the 21st century and that poor sleep hygiene and poor mental health are clearly interconnected. For more on this, look at the research of Dr Mike Farquhar, Consultant in Sleep Medicine at Great Ormond Street Hospital:

 

However, the causes behind the so-called crisis are not easy to define…because if they were, surely they would be easy to address.

Last summer I read a book by Matt Haig which I would highly recommend as an analysis of the possible reasons behind the societal dis-ease that is affecting many young people.

Notes on a Nervous Planet is brilliantly written as it tells Matt Haig’s personal story of anxiety, depression, existential doubts and literary genius but also draws on the ideas of other researchers and thinkers. Here, for example, he quotes Harari’s hugely influential book Sapiens…..and I don’t think this is a million miles away from what we talked about back in Mr Bell’s economics lessons.

Before we move on from the possible causes of any mental health crisis, I just want to mention this:

Because the world is confusing and hard to understand a lot of the time, not just for children, but for us adults too. And it’s only if we talk about it, that we will be able to manage it. I am not sure why this man is a role model. If I could, I’d ask him what he has to say about some of the mistakes from his past and debate whether he is actually the ultimate authentic role model who admits that he is flawed and has erred but is now repentant and looking to be forgiven so that he can work productively and fruitfully to make a contribution to his community. Maybe I would be able to forgive him and move on. But maybe some of the victims of his past would find it harder.

But to return to my first slide, whatever the reasons may be, a lot of young people would appear to be struggling and it seems logical that we, as people who are working to educate and support young people, should talk and teach about it.

The third reason behind my assertion is this.

In 2016 I did a poll on Twitter about staff mental health.

 

Why?

A friend who is a teacher in England and whom I really trust had said the phrase quoted to me.

I had heard of a school leader who had recently said that she had concerns over a prospective employee because she knows that she had suffered depression in the past.

I  was aware that the virtual community of which I was a part at the time was something of an echo chamber. The amazing, positive, empathic, wonderful people whom I was engaging with through #teacher5day, “HealthyTeacherToolkit” and other forums did not, I feared, represent the whole of our profession. And that bothered me. I had written a lot on this matter and about how I think it SHOULD be in schools.

Of course, the poll was pretty unscientific and I am sure that the wonderful researchEd crew and Tom Bennett would have been pretty unimpressed:

For a start, there was no definition of what I meant by mental health.

I did not specify whether I wanted people with a medical diagnosis or the self-diagnosed to respond

And I did not ask the same question relating to physical health in order to make a comparison. I  was hugely thankful to those who engaged with this and showed a shared passion to make things better.

The slide shows the final result:

Unscientfic or not, there was a message here. Thank goodness for that 65%. But 35% agreeing?

Many people also tweeted thoughts and several sent me longer direct messages.

And the  real value of this exercise was in these responses and stories:

Some teachers and leaders answered with a definitive “I do not agree” and talked about schools where the mental wellbeing of staff is prioritised.

Others talked of having experienced terrible treatment in one school only to find a sympathetic approach in another so that they could continue successfully in their careers.

Some teachers talked of having been dismissed in defiance of equalities legislation but without the resilience or support to challenge this; the law is one thing but invisible prejudice that cannot be proven is another.

Others spoke of being forced into early retirement having shown vulnerability or having asked for support or reasonable adaptations.

And so on.

It seemed clear that there were some amazing schools out there doing an amazing job. There was a lot to be learned from them. But there were clearly also schools where there was room for improvement.

Some observations I made at the time

The education of our children is not something to be taken lightly.

Having someone who is able to be nurturing, calm, positive, realistically optimistic and caring for children is vital. If you aren’t those things, you probably need to do some reflection on whether now is the right time for you to be working with young people.

But that is not to say that you can’t be all of those things and suffering from mental health issues. There are teachers who put on the act during the day but struggle out of school with stress. There are functioning, thriving depressives. There are those who experience anxiety but manage it.

Let’s be honest. If someone is suffering from a bout of severe depression, they will probably be incapable of putting everything needed into teaching a class of thirty adolescents.

But then again, so would someone suffering severe back pain.

Teaching is stressful and maybe those who are not mentally resilient are not best suited to be in a classroom under intense pressures.

But there are other options. Teaching adults. Teaching part-time. A career break for recovery.

Absence in school through any type of illness is hard to manage. Getting quality supply can be difficult and absence can impact on teaching and learning. But school leaders can minimise absence through awareness of their staff members’ wellbeing, early intervention and by creating a culture where it is ok to ask for help.

The individual school context and ethos are key. If ethos is not right, it is this in itself that may lead to a person suffering from mental ill health even if they had no issues previously.

If you hit me with a stick, I will suffer physical injury and distress. If you shout at me, bully me, exclude me, undermine me, I will suffer mental injury and distress.

(In the long term, I (and others) would like to see the following implemented in order to ensure that moving forward, all schools are happy, healthy environments:

The inclusion in all leadership and headship development courses of modules on staff wellbeing management.

The inclusion in all initial teacher training courses of modules on managing emotional health and wellbeing in a high-challenge profession.

Awareness raising around equalities legislation that tells us that it is illegal to discriminate against someone who has mental health issues (current or past).

The development of education-specific occupational health teams.)

In the short term, here’s what I suggested that people could do, whether they were a head teacher or a dinner lady:

• Be reflective about your own assumptions and prejudices and learn about mental health, what it is and what it is not. Do a mental health first aid course or look at website like this: https://www.scottishrecovery.net/.
• Engage in all those behaviours and kindnesses that you teach your pupils about.
• Challenge gossip and rumour about others.
• Challenge bullying behaviour and cliques.
• Avoid repeating certain clichéd phrases – for example “she’s off her head”, “he’s a psychopath”.
• Watch out for each other and ask people how they are. Listen to the answer.
• Challenge stigma.
• Ask for help when you need it.
• Celebrate the wonderful diversity of your colleagues and embrace them for all they are, vulnerabilities and strengths.
• Love the ones you’re with. You never know when they may not be there.

 

 

Back for a moment to this book; I really like the way that Matt Haig talks about stigma here:

If as adults, we stuggle to talk, how on earth are children going to manage?

But hopefully, things are changing.

And this brings me on to my next reason.

We need to create cultures in schools where pupils meet with adults who care about them and show them unconditional positive regard.

What this means is adults who see them as lovable and full of potential and able to learn, even when sometimes they can’t act loveably or learn for the moment. Who show them that they respect and have time for them even when they sometimes have difficult things going on in their heads and make poor choices.

Who don’t judge them because they sometimes act out because they are feeling so bad.

Who don’t shame or punish them for their behaviours but allow them to get it wrong in the hope that with good teaching and support they will learn to get it right.

Who don’t punish precisely those pupils who are living the hardest lives and deserve more support than others.

These are the teachers and adults who make a difference to children who are struggling to make good choices and are therefore mentally unhealthy.

Chris Kilkenny is a care-experienced speaker in his early twenties who grew up in poverty, in care and in addiction services because of the addictions that had been passed on to him in utero. I am honoured to call Chris my friend. He talks about the very poor experiences he had in school when there were no adults willing to see beyond his behaviour and take the time to see that he was struggling. No-one who asked how he was. No-one who was there, day-in, day-out. Chris  now goes into schools and talks about the difference that just one adult can make to the life of a child by doing the simplest things. If you want to hear Chris talk about this, find last week’s Ricky Ross Show from Sunday morning on STV catch-up.  Or watch out for him on the STV Appeal this coming Tuesday, 25th September at 7.30pm. Chris is also part of the ACE Aware Nation movement in Scotland which is driven by the fundamental belief that adults working together can mitigate against the damage of trauma that children may experience in their lives.

(The movement has been responsible for bringing screenings of the film Resilience to Scotland under the passionate leadership of Dr Suzanne Zeedyk who is is a research scientist fascinated by the connections between our emotional and physical health. More information can be found here.

Suzanne’s core aspiration is to strengthen awareness of the decisions we take about caring for our children — because those choices are integrally connected to our vision for the kind of society we wish to build.

Her team have been working for some time to bring awareness to the UK and Scotland around what have come to be known as Adverse Childhood Experiences and which are the subject of the film.

The Scottish Tour took place between 29th April and 1st July 2017. Over that nine week period, 28 screenings of the film were hosted, all over the country. Almost all of them sold out. Twenty-five were community screenings, held as far north as Shetland and as far south as Dumfries. The remaining three were additions: the Premiere, a screening for the business community, and a screening for Scottish Government civil servants. In total 2,435 people came.

Since the tour, there have been numerous screenings and the film has had huge impact in moving forward Scottish society’s understanding  of what needs to happen to help children thrive.

Interestingly, Vincent Felitti, one of the doctors who appears in the film was here in Scotland 10 years ago and spoke about the issues– but there was no revolution then.

The power of this film seems to be that it has sparked what Suzanne calls a revolution in kindness to children.

Revolution happens because individuals want it to happen.

One of the key messages of the film is that to be resilient role models to children, we have to first acknowledge our own uncomfortable feelings and take ownership of any bad things that have happened to us so that we can move on from them.

Jack P Shonkoff MD speaks about the fact that children who are born with a poor start in life are not doomed. The science shows otherwise. He speaks about the term toxic stress stress which is the chronic activation a stress reaction with no support to manage that stress.

Resilience (the ability to survive and thrive in spite of trauma) is learnt but you cannot learn it if you are living in a culture of fear. A child cannot learn conflict resolution if his parents are constantly fighting.

A child cannot plan for the future if she lives in a culture of fear where the future seems frightening. A child cannot learn to delay gratification if she is constantly mixing with friends who do drugs. The key to learning resilience is the presence of stable and caring adults. In order for adults to be caring and stable they need to acknowledge their own early experiences and transform their own lives. Adults need to build their own capabilities in planning, monitoring, and impulse control. This is about more than just reading to kids.

It’s crucial that those involved with the children are trauma informed. We should not talk about what is wrong with children. We should talk about what has happened to children.

– Some teachers may feel that they are not qualified to do this work as they are not therapists But this is not about therapy. It is about life. It is about us adults being honest about the ups and downs of life but showing up and being role models.

– And no matter how jaded we feel, we can’t give up.)

Just for a moment, I would like to return to the idea of us being role models. It is important that, as role models to young people, we show our own vulnerabilities as well as our strengths. Even though I am the head teacher in my school, all my pupils knew a year ago that my dad was not well with cancer and that I was struggling a bit because I talked about it ins assemblies..but they also saw me come out the other side of it and manage the emotions around this difficult situation.

They also know that I struggled with anxiety and perfectionism when I was in my early 20s because I have told them; I want them to learn from where I went wrong. I fell into some very helpful at the time (but damaging in the long term) coping mechanisms that have taken me years to unpick and are still hard to shake.

They don’t know the full details but I can tell you that it was a pretty dire time for me and that I fought some really difficult battles to stay mentally healthy. I am 100% certain that if someone at school had talked to me about mental health I wouldn’t have had such a difficult time. When we do talk and learn about it we can feel better and children need to know that. More on this type of experience from a friend here, if are interested, though it does not make for easy reading.

Even Mrs Smiley, positive Carter goes through difficult patches and that is ok. In my opinion, children need to see that. My own two children need to see that too.

Perhaps it is better to say that children are at risk of death when we don’t teach them to be mentally healthy. Let’s not fall into the press tendency to over-dramatise.

But there is no expressing what you go through, as a teacher, when a young person in your care commits suicide.

And of course, adults who have not been taught to be mentally health are at risk too.

So. What can we do, in practical terms, if we want to talk and teach about mental health?

Just start. Use the WHO definition of mental health and start a conversation.

Look at the Action for Happiness website. It is a fantastic resource, full of free to use material and fully backed up by robust research from great thinkers like Lord Layard and the Dalai Lama:

 

A caveat.

Although we need to talk about mental health, talking is not always easy.

We started this campaign in our school a couple of years back and it worked well in many cases, but not for all pupils.

One of the things that has upset me the most recently is hearing professionals from CAMHS say that they can’t do anything for a child because the child won’t engage, by which they mean, talk.

Who has a teenage child in the room?

And how chatty are they?

We KNOW that teenagers often lose the power of verbal communication and revert to monosyllabism when they hit adolescence so why would anyone expect them to talk to a therapist or counsellor about feelings?! We need to do better than that and offer something else.

For me, that is often simply hello and eye contact at the morning bus drop off. Or just offering a smile every day in class. Or maybe writing a postcard to say something positive. Or organising a lunchtime club.

You don’t need to be CAMHS trained to do these things. But they DO make a difference.

We can talk to children about some of the difficult issues in life and we can create a culture where we use assemblies and lessons to model openness and honesty. But they may not always want or be ready to talk back and therefore we must never push it.

Thanks for listening. I hope that some of this may be of some use.

The wisdom of Pooh.

This afternoon my son Ru and I went to see the new Christopher Robin film.

It was Ru’s choice.

It tells of how the grown up Christopher Robin has moved to London, works too hard, ignores his lovely wife and daughter and is stressed and burnt out. He has become horribly serious and forgotten how to play. He has clearly suffered from being sent away to boarding school, losing  his father at a young age, being made to grow up too soon and experiencing the trauma of fighting in a war.

Spoiler alert: he ends up finding the 100 acre wood gang, realising that he needs to connect with his playful and imaginative side again, stopping for a bit….and being ok.

I think my boy was trying to tell me something.

I laughed, cried, slept for 10 minutes as I am so exhausted from work already worn out feeling it should be a wake-up call.

You can read some of the very lovely quotes from the film here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4575576/quotes

There is also a brilliant quote at the end about the exploitative Woozles who get all the credit why the rest of us rush round doing the work……and another about how we can find solutions to problems when we just look at them from a different angle.

Go and see it. And heed the warnings.

“When you do nothing, it leads to the very best of something.”

 

Goliath

Some of you will know that I have been a bit lost and voiceless recently. But I am slowly finding my way back.

Today I was given the great privilege of speaking at Pedagoo Goliath.

I was in the room.

Photo courtesy of Charlaine Simpson.

This is what I said.

I have been teaching since 1992. I have worked in 8 different schools across England, Scotland and Germany. I have been a teaching assistant, a classroom teacher, a PT, a key stage manager, a deputy head teacher..and a youth theatre leader.

What I am going to talk about today is based on thinking and experience across all of those roles and settings and is not related specifically to the school or context I am in now or any one school or setting I have worked in.

I went into teaching and I am a teacher and leader because I want children to have the best lives they can.

I went into teaching and I am a teacher and leader because I love the creativity, energy and brilliance that every child can demonstrate.

I went into teaching and I am a teacher and leader because I want to work in a school where inclusion, care, ambition, success and relationships between people are at the heart.

I went into teaching and I am a teacher and leader because I was incredibly successful at school and have been in my career but have suffered lifelong mental health issues because I experienced an adverse childhood experience at the age of seven and lived with the shame and confusion for way too long. I know that if we can work with children at an early stage to mitigate against such experiences they can be spared years of suffering and struggle.

I am a genuine idealist and optimist and I would imagine that many of you are too. That is why you are here on a Saturday!

Hands up if you find it hard to be positive and idealistic sometimes.

Hands up if you find that the educational world you want for education is not the world you find yourself in.

Hands up if you want your school to be like the ones that Sir Ken Robinson envisaged in his talk back in 2010 on Changing Education Paradigms.

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

But maybe sometimes you find yourself or have found yourself in a position where everything you value or believe is challenged on a regular basis?

Maybe by a boss who insists on celebrating the success of National 5 or Higher pupils in the press but failing to mention the pupils who got National 3s?

Maybe by a colleague who insists that detentions, punishments and shouting are the best way of educating children about behaviour?

Maybe by a government minister who has never taught, has no idea about pedagogy or child development but who decides that we need high stakes testing to raise standards?

Or maybe by the lack of services for children experiencing significant mental health challenges?

So, my key questions, after all these other questions, and the theme of my conversation today, are:

Can you survive and thrive in education if this is the world you live in?

How do you keep going when much of the media seems to hold schools single handedly responsible for overcoming the imperfections of the world?

How do you stay true to your values in an imperfect world?

Let’s face it, lots of teachers are deciding that it can’t be done. Difficulties with the recruitment and retention of teachers across the UK are being reported on a daily basis. More and more leaders are turning to jobs in consultancy or advisory roles. Lots are going off sick.

But having wrestled with these questions on and off throughout my career I want to suggest that it is possible to survive and thrive.

I have left teaching twice; once when my kids were small and we emigrated to the Outer Hebrides for change of pace and again after a year in Argyll when I was seconded to my authority central team.

Both times I found myself missing being in a school, missing teaching and missing what I know I do best.

Last year I also came close to burning out, giving up and leaving it to someone else.

So, what does it take for us to keep going in our chosen profession, to retain our optimism and idealism and to continue to do our jobs with joy and love?

I would like to suggest a few tools that can make it possible. Some are based on my own experience and others are borrowed from much wiser people.

I like to refer to these tools as instruments of personal power. These are things that have worked for me but after I have shared them, I’d like to invite you to consider what your own might be.

1. The GTCS standards

We are really fortunate to have these at the heart of our profession in Scotland. Not all nations do.

I love the positivity, integrity and passion of the standards and the fact that these underpin our profession and these ones in particular are really empowering to me.

If I am facing doubts or feeling like a lone lunatic some days I find it really useful to come back to them and repeat them, almost like a mantra.

1.1.1	I embrace locally and globally the educational and social values of sustainability, equality and justice and I recognise the rights and responsibilities of future as well as current generations.
1.1.2	I am committed to the principles of democracy and social justice through fair, transparent, inclusive and sustainable policies and practices in relation to: age, disability, gender and gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion and belief and sexual orientation.
1.1.3	I value as well as respect social, cultural and ecological diversity and I promote the principles and practices of local and global citizenship for all learners.
1.1.4	I demonstrate a commitment to engaging learners in real world issues to enhance learning experiences and outcomes, and to encourage learning our way to a better future.
1.1.5	I respect the rights of all learners as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and their entitlement to be included in decisions regarding their learning experiences and have all aspects of their well-being developed and supported.

1.2.1	I demonstrate openness, honesty, courage and wisdom.
1.2.2	I critically examine personal and professional attitudes and beliefs and I challenge assumptions and professional practice.
1.2.3	I critically examine the connections between personal and professional attitudes and beliefs, values and practices to effect improvement and, when appropriate, bring about transformative change in practice.

1.3.1	I act and behave in ways that develop a culture of trust and respect through, for example, being trusting and respectful of others within the school, and with all those involved in influencing the lives of learners in and beyond the learning community.
1.3.2	I provide and ensure a safe and secure environment for all learners within a caring and compassionate ethos and with an understanding of wellbeing.
1.3.3	I demonstrate a commitment to motivating and inspiring learners, acknowledging their social and economic context, individuality and specific learning needs and taking into consideration barriers to learning.

2. Twitter – connect with your Tribe. The fantastic speaker and writer Jaz Ampaw Farr who talks about sometimes feeling like a lone lunatic.

Now in theory, if all the teachers in your context are living up to the standards above, then you should be able to find loads of like minded souls in the place where you work and Scottish schools should be like one huge happy party venue. But we know that sometimes, for various reasons, we can feel lonely and isolated…maybe because our setting is very small, maybe because we are a one teacher school or maybe because we are so busy in the working day that we don’t have time to connect with people who we see every day.

I urge that you do try to find support and solidarity amongst those you are with in real life but to back that up, I would really urge using forums like Twitter and, of course, Pedagoo to keep you energised and inspired.

3. Blog or journal. Write down your thoughts, fears and anxieties. Reflect and use writing to help you get your thoughts straight. Do so publicly, via a blog, privately, in a journal or maybe even under a pseudonym. https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/embed?asin=B01KP8XT86&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_yNodyb2G7M8DZ&reshareId=AG74E4ZS8HK5P546KMTY&reshareChannel=system

4. Your voice – use it to challenge, question and champion human rights (you may not be popular…). But sometimes, we need to speak out to keep ourselves sane, if we know that something is not right. Question in a way that is respectful and well thought-through and be willing to accept the answer or to ask another question.

5. Your true self; don’t hide behind something you think others want you to be. Do smile before Christmas.

Of course, we play roles in our lives and probably have a teacher persona that helps us do the job:

I talk to pupils a lot about this in drama; I acknowledge that the me they see in school is a slightly different version to the one they would see at home….but fundamentally it is still me.

Don’t let the roles mask the real you. Hiding the real you is exhausting and soul destroying. If you feel you have to do it at work, look at why that is.

6. Have a “what else?” plan (Thanks to my wonderful coach Mal Krishnasamy for this idea). Knowing you have choice is empowering and most of us do have a choice. If you have a plan B (to teach abroad, to set up a coffee shop, to set up as a consultant), then when things get really tough you know you have options; one of the worst things for our mental health can be feeling that we don’t have control. If things start to get really tough, it can be really helpful to sit down and look at your current situation and the plan B and weigh up the pros and cons of each…and probably you will end up realising that the pros of working in a school are what will keep you there. But maybe not.

7. Have a break… don’t fear “career suicide”.

I have done it twice. I actually think it can be hugely beneficial and bring all sorts of new perspectives to what we do and don’t listen to people who say “ooh if you leave now, you’ll never get back” as if you are going to lose all your experience, personality and skill just by taking a break.

8. Books – James Hilton is my number one recommendation at the moment.

https://lenabellina.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/book-review-leading-from-the-edge-james-hilton-published-by-bloomsbury/

9. As well as reflecting on the GTCS values, make sure you can define your own values.

I last reflected on mine last spring.

Feb 2018

I have been reflecting and looking back over the things I said I wanted to be and achieve as a school leader and I am glad to say that they have not changed:

• Everyone must be willing to self-reflect and learn.
• We don’t shout at others.
• We all get things wrong and need to be able to apologise when we do.
• We are all human and being in a position of authority does not mean you are better than anyone else.
• Everyone needs to take time to see the reality of a situation and not fall into making judgements based on half-truths, prejudice or stereotypes.
• Everyone is worthy of love.

These non-negotiables were arrived at after working in a number of settings over many years but I would assert that they are absolutely essential in any successful school.

And they are still what I hold true to.

My job is the best job in the world.

——————————————————————————————————————————

A final thought.

Sometimes it takes time to move things on, to achieve our goals and to change culture.

If you are a bit impatient like me, it can be hard to remember this and it is important to set goals and timescales and realise that changing the world won’t happen overnight.

But don’t be a martyr. My mum was and always used to say “well, someone has to do it”…. but she left teaching at 50 on stress grounds.

If you are a martyr, and exhausted and demoralised, it is unlikely you will be the optimistic and energetic role model you want to be.

If you are in a position where you have tried to empower yourself and you still feel that you are fighting a losing battle, sacrificing too much or you aren’t happy because things aren’t right for you, don’t feel you have to keep soldiering on.

But as my mentor and source of constant inspiration Jill Berry says, before you quit teaching, try another school. Sometimes it might be all it takes to keep you teaching.

Every child in your school has the right to be happy, healthy and doing the best they can.

But so do you. If you aren’t, I hope that some of this may help to ensure that you can be.

Now I invite you to take some time to reflect on these for yourself:

My challenges:

My instruments of personal power:

My non-negotiables:

This.

I have nothing to write or say.

If you want to know how I CAN write, how much I reflect on my job, my rôle, education and “all things learning”, feel free to read back through my blog. Lots of people have told me that I write well. That I inspire, help, teach through my writing.

 

But just now, I am not doing too well. I feel low, tired and the much-needed holidays didn’t really refresh me.

So I am writing this to say that just now, I can’t write.

I can’t see much point in it.

I have been here before and I will get back to somewhere better.

I will manage the day job just fine and I will find solace in the classroom, in teaching the subject I love and in helping lead my school.

There isn’t space for much else.

Don’t worry and don’t ask.

But above all, don’t think that anyone is immune from not living up to what the world (or perhaps the world of their inner critical voice) expects.

 

 

 

 

Deep breath needed.

Deep breath neeed here. Some honesty.

This is a post for my lovely virtual friend Hope Virgo and her #dumpthescales campaign.

Warning – there is mention of weight and scales here. Possible trigger.

This is the reality of being in recovery from disordered eating.

I am 49.

I am a senior leader in a school.

I am empirically very good at what I do (Ouch. It feels uncomfortable saying that but it is true.)

I am a good enough wife and mum.

In the holidays, I went to my childhood home where there are scales. I have no scales in my own house and could tell you that I maybe weigh 9 and a half stone but most of the time I don’t know.

Years back, it was a very different story and the scales ruled my life.

When I got home to Dorset, the scales told me that I was 9 stone 5 (first morning, no clothes, post exercise.) I felt happy with that.

There was no change to this for the next four mornings.

I then went to France. No scales. Food. Wine. Daily exercise. Relaxation.

I came back from France and back to scales in my parents’ home. On the first morning back the scales showed 9 stone 9. 

Free floating panic. Self hatred. Suddenly my clothes felt tight. I did not want to eat. I felt guilty. Stupid. Ugly.

I engaged with all the positive self-talk and self-help strategies that I could.

I got through it.

The next day the scales told me 9,5 again.

I felt relieved, delivered, forgiven.

What is it that a small metal measuring device can render a grown, strong, capable woman so disempowered?

What is it?

What is it that the anorexic voices are always ready to pounce?

How can I be so self-absorbed, ungrateful, unaware of all that I have when others have so little?

The homeless, the starving, the really needy….

I don’t know. 

But I do know that there are lots of us who are in the same boat and that it isn’t something that we can easily out-think or overcome.

And that we stand more chance of overcoming it if we are honest about it.

Book review: Leading From The Edge. James Hilton. Published by Bloomsbury.

This book is an absolute must-read for any school leader who is experiencing stress or wishes to understand what it is like to do so. I write and know a lot about teacher wellbeing but this year I have teetered on the edge and wondered about my ability and desire to carry on.

James is living proof that it is possible to step back from the edge (or, in his case, to fall off it for a while but then climb back up) and become a thriving leader again.

Broken for a bit does not mean broken permanently and the advice that James offers will help to ensure that more of us stay sane and in the game.

The book offers an analysis of James’ own personal journey with insights from the mental health practitioner who supported him. It also gives practical techniques and strategies to help senior leaders deal with the likely causes of stress. It looks at sleep, diet, lifestyle, relaxation and mindset and is interspersed with advice from other experienced leaders from across the globe who have faced and overcome the challenges of school leadership.

This book will be my bible over the coming weeks and months. Thanks for writing it, James.

10 Questions

Another outing for this one.

In the summer holidays we often reflect on whether the job we are in the right one, or whether we should have a re-think.

Here, then, 10 questions that you need to answer ‘yes’ to* if you want to be a teacher/stay in teaching, in my humblest of opinions. (Please insert the  phrase ‘on the whole’ at the *. On reflection and after first writing, I have realised that we probably can’t achieve a resounding ‘yes’ on absolutely all occasions as we are human and fallible and all have ‘those’ days.)

1. Do you like children and are you able to love each one as if they were related to you?

2. Do you like hard work?

3. Do you like working in a team of adults?

4. Are you self-aware and self-reflective?

5. Do you understand your own behaviour and its impact on others?

6. Do you genuinely value inclusion and equity?

7. Are you able to see beyond fads and trends and stay committed to your values and evidence based research?

8. Do you understand that the long holidays are not really all holidays? See here for more excellent reflection on this by @teachertoolkit‍ : www.teachertoolkit.me/2015/08/…

9. If you have never worked outside of education, are you willing to work hard to research and understand other ways of being?

10. Are you able to say sorry?