Teaching internationally brings together a wide range of cultures, beliefs and experiences, however, an agreed common denominator of why we teach is still “the student comes first” and in particular student wellbeing.
However, have we fallen into a trap of trying to “fix” students when it comes to their wellbeing rather than tackle the underlying context in which they are operating day in day out: the school environment.
There is no agreed definition of wellbeing, therefore, it makes wellbeing increasingly hard to define and measure. However, some of the more common language around wellbeing, that has been used over the years includes:
A positive state – a positive rather than neutral state – WHO (1948)
Positive functioning – Waterman (1993)
Happiness and life satisfaction – Diener (2009)
Feeling good – Seligman (2011)
“Children and young people feeling good, feeling that their life is going well, and feeling able to get on with their daily lives” – Anna Freud Foundation (2016)
Although wellbeing is subjective, there are some underlying historical themes. In the attempt to measure “success” or value added, at times student wellbeing has often been narrowly defined and quantified by “grades, test scores, attendance records etc.”
It has become common and maybe even considered best practice to use data to identify students who are “under-performing” and putting in place interventions that are perceived to improve an individual’s grades, attendance etc – assuming this will improve wellbeing.
“Mental health was rarely discussed in Singapore’s academically rigorous schools prior to the pandemic.”
This attitude towards wellbeing has been a reflection of how many young people and families in a Singapore context have viewed wellbeing historically. Mental health was rarely discussed in Singapore’s academically rigorous schools prior to the pandemic, however, that now appears to be changing.
However, more recently research indicates that “youth mental health is a rapidly developing field with a focus on prevention, early identification, treatment innovation and service development”.
Dr Helen Street, who is the creator and chair of Positive Schools across Australia and South East Asia, often refers to wellbeing as “belonging” and we are using the term belonging as our foundation for wellbeing. Building on this foundation is encouraging young people to develop their own definition of wellbeing – celebrating that wellbeing is socially constructed and therefore personal to everyone.
With an increased focus on mental illness, suicide prevention and identification of “at risk students”, some wellbeing interventions can be seen as something that is “done” to young people to make them “well”.
While well-intentioned, and effective at times, the lack of collaboration and autonomy can be disempowering for young people. Much of what has been developed are systems for individual interventions to support students in crisis or simply having systems in place to respond to issues.
“Some wellbeing interventions can be seen as something that is ‘done’ to young people.”
For example, using wellbeing surveys that highlight individual students with “low wellbeing” and then using this data as an identifier for those who need further support. There are anonymous SOS systems to remove barriers regarding disclosures and reporting and compulsory 1:1 student and tutor conversations.
These systems are reassuring for the whole school community, as students who need additional support have strong provisions in place. But psychologist Ignacio Martín Baró strongly suggests that we cannot isolate “mental health problems” from our wider societal structures, unfortunately, many pastoral care systems have been set up to do just this.
“We wonder if we should be spending more time looking at the school context rather than trying to ‘fix’ students?”
Sanah Ahsan shared this idea: If a plant were wilting we wouldn’t diagnose it with “wilting-plant-syndrome” – we would change its conditions. “But if we could transform the soil, access sunlight, nurture our interconnected roots and have room for our leaves to unfurl, wouldn’t life be a little more livable?”
In our education setting we recall conversations with colleagues suggesting we spend 95 per cent of our time focusing on 5 per cent of the students. We want to challenge this thinking: what could school-wide wellbeing look like if we’re able to spend 95 per cent of our time on 95 per cent of students?
Could the answer lie with Dr Helen Street’s work around contextual wellbeing which highlights if students are struggling then there should be a focus on the context as opposed to there being a problem with the students. We wonder if we should be spending more time looking at the school context rather than trying to “fix” students?