People are the heart of every school

I have come to believe that the future of education is dependent upon our commitment to the social, emotional and psychological well-being of teachers, staff, students and parents.

We need to invest in those who make up our communities. The past decade has seen massive building expansions to schools and significant investments in technology. Now, it is time to focus on the overall well-being of our people.

Schools should develop programs that entice and support members of their communities to be more physically active, eat healthier, consume alcohol in moderation, avoid smoking and drugs and care for their mental health, by reducing stress and anxiety in their lives. Healthy people will determine the health of a school and thus its culture, environment and inevitably its success.

Parents want their kids to be educated, challenged and prepared for the workforce but more importantly, they want them to be happy, encouraged, supported and loved. Human connection and meaningful relationships will provide every member of the school community with the drive and desire to thrive and succeed.

The Z generation is growing up in a world that has different values, customs, methods of communication, attention spans and a reliance on immediate gratification. Their brains are hardwired differently and we must do our best to understand and consider these changes that greatly affect their lives.

The 6 C’s of 21st Century learning offer some insight and guidance as to what schools can concentrate on before it is too late.

Communication by developing a fluency in the various types of literacy (cultural, information, media, digital) will allow students to interact effectively with diverse individuals.

Collaboration will offer students the opportunity to interact with their peers and their teachers in order to problem-solve, hypothesize and learn together.

Creativity may be the key to guaranteed employment in the coming decades due to the manner in which it allows an individual to be imaginative, open-minded, agile and consider obstacles from a design perspective.

Citizenship is essential as small groups currently dominate the workforce but global-connectedness is creating larger more diverse teams of individuals who need to interact effectively and respectfully.

Critical thinking continues to be an essential skill in all facets of education and industry and is often the key to solving complex problems.

Character has always been valued but it will soon become an essential skill as employers will require integrity, transparency and trustworthiness to adapt to the changing realities.

According to NAIS, the unifying themes for the future rely on schools being connected to the community, offering a global perspective, having professional learning communities, promoting a culture of engagement and support and enabling transformational leadership to establish the vision and motivate the staff for change and growth. Schools will become more personalized and social interactions will be at the heart of all initiatives.

Schools must care for their teachers who will in turn care for the students. Schools must educate their parents who will in turn educate their children. Schools must show kindness, encouragement and understanding to their students so they may develop self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, self-resolve, self-determination, self-motivation, self-help and self-love. These personal attributes will all be required to navigate the future world successfully.

Engaged, enthusiastic and connected students and staff will lead the success for 21st century schools.

Students are experiencing levels of anxiety, stress and depression that are increasingly high and are hindering their ability to function and achieve success. According to a range of mental health experts, schools should focus on giving students the tools they need to overcome their anxiety, while fostering a school culture that embraces a healthy environment. A key factor to building resilience is strengthening the self-regulatory skills such as prioritization, focus, and flexibility and this can be accomplished by teaching various coping strategies to students such as mindfulness.

Achieving balance is becoming increasingly more important than achieving high grades.

A growing trend in many industries, including education, is to offer Mental Health First Aid training to the staff. According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, which is active in 25 countries, Mental Health First Aid training was first developed in Australia in 2001 and its objectives are to increase awareness of mental health issues, increase confidence in managing situations, reduce the stigma often associated with mental health and develop a common language and understanding among the staff. To further support this, several countries have developed Mental Health Curriculums for schools to implement.

For the past five years, I have witnessed a cathartic rise in anxiety and stress in teenagers and they need our help. I am not seeing a groundswell mobilisation to address what is arguably the most serious and debilitating social situation affecting today’s youth and one that will have an impact on an entire generation.

What I am seeing is the following:

1. Teens are often overwhelmed by the magnitude of scheduled activities in their lives. This can include school work, sports, artistic endeavours, learning a language, tutoring and a part-time job.
2. Social media is consuming their lives through constant snapchats, posts, likes, comments and the perceived necessity for the “perfect” selfie. Their online identity is sometimes valued more than their real personality and their relationships are becoming more superficial and artificial.
3. Teens have little time for relaxation, introspection, reflection, face-to-face conversations, shared experiences and relationship building.
4. Teens are not well equipped to deal with the pressures that they face today. Their stress is being manifested as anxiety and depression instead of being transformed into perseverance and positive decision-making.
5. The ability to manage stress via executive functioning skills is still being developed in the teenage years.
6. The cycle of stress, anxiety, and self-doubt creates a vicious circle that most teens have difficulty extracting themselves from.

We need to do the following:

1. Teach teenagers the skills that they will need to manage stress effectively.
2. Support teens in their efforts to manage the various stressors in their life.
3. Ensure that we, as a society, recognize the current unhealthy situation and that parents, organisations and schools are open and willing to modify their practices in order to help kids and teens achieve better balance.
4. Schools need to be agile and adept at responding to the needs of their students and constantly adapt to the reality of this generation.
5. Open and facilitate the dialogue about anxiety, depression and self-esteem with students, teachers and parents. There needs to be a concerted effort to better understand mental health, remove the stigma attached to it and provide the support required.
6. Permit kids to be kids and allow them to play, make mistakes, discover their passions and enjoy life growing up.

A generation of youth is depending on us to intervene and even though this is their present reality it does not have to become their destiny.

What if we all believed that the schools of the future require its community members to be healthy, happy, active and engaged?

What can you do within your school to improve the overall health of your students and staff?

What type of information do the members of your community require in order to make better choices?