Mental Health and Academic Learning in Schools

Approaches for Facilitating the Wellbeing of Children and Young People.

Andrea Reupert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781032090153
• eBook ISBN: 9781315310916
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Mental Health and Academic Learning in Schools: Approaches for Facilitating the Wellbeing of Children and Young People investigates the many areas impacting on young people's learning and mental health in a unified manner. Offering a new model for teaching, learning and connecting with young people, it provides compelling evidence about the intertwined nature of students' academic performance, mental health and behaviour.

The book presents integrated models and strategies that serve to enhance student learning and promote wellbeing. Chapters explore issues relating to classroom management, school culture and leadership, staff wellbeing, pedagogy, inclusion and the curriculum. Placing students at the centre of decision making, the book showcases innovative models and strategies that schools might use for preventing problems, engaging students and identifying and addressing learning or mental health problems that some students might experience.

This book will appeal to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of mental health and education, and will also be of interest to school counsellors, educational psychologists and those working with young people in schools.

Chapter 1

Alice’s story

In many parts of the world, the scope of education is becoming increasingly narrow. Educational decisions are typically driven by expectations about student performance in high stakes national tests and the need to achieve or surpass school and national achievement benchmarks. In the seemingly constant pursuit of academic outcomes, opportunities to enhance important objectives are lost, including the promotion of student wellbeing.

Predominately focusing teaching efforts and resources on academic outcomes comes at a cost, to staff as well as student wellbeing. Alice’s story, which is outlined in detail below, highlights the ways in which schools not only miss opportunities to enhance wellbeing but also, in many ways, actively mitigate against it.

Like most children, Alice was very happy to start school, as she says:

I think I was a pretty excited kid … I absolutely wanted to go. Yeah, I was ready for that. I was looking forward to it … I absolutely adored primary school. I loved it. I just remember being just a typical prep kid.

In many ways, Alice shined at primary school and was engaged in learning.

I really wanted to learn, yeah. I was really interested in learning. I was – I was interested in doing a good job. I liked every subject.

However, she learnt early on that she was not like the other kids, though she simultaneously worked out ways to accommodate what she later discovered to be a diagnosis of dyslexia.

I noticed I was always a bit slower at reading, especially around grade 3. Two friends of mine – they’d begun to excel at reading, and they would be reading chapter books as a race with each other, like sitting there next to each other, flipping pages as fast as they could. And that sort of – it never interested me because I just knew I couldn’t keep up with that. Even by grade 3 I realised I didn’t actually know how to spell my middle name – one of them. I never got taught how to spell it. So – and I think I used to write my name backwards.

Alice’s self-identified accommodations seemed to work, for a while at least.

And so, it didn’t really seem like it was a problem in primary school. I just knew I was not great at spelling but I always had a trick up my sleeve just to sound words out and try and spell things phonetically. I had lots of strategies. Instead of learning how to spell words I would just learn the shape of the words – like the image of it and write that again. That was how I got by mostly.

Moving into high school was an entirely different experience. A spiral of events, including not getting on with friends, not being able to play sport and not being able to complete homework on time, led to feeling depressed and constantly tired.

So, after that I tried my hardest to keep going at school and keep my head above water. But I just sort of slowly begun to sink under the weight of more school work and just the depression and not caring anymore.

She started to “wag” (an Australian term for truancy).

I began to wag around year 10. And it wasn’t that I was really wagging because I would say, okay, I’m getting up, I’m going to school. I’d put my uniform on, my mum would go out, I would then go out the back fence to where I was meant to go catch the bus, circle around the block and sneak back into the house and just hop back into bed. And I would be there until at least 2:00pm and Mum would come and find me because she got the text from the school saying I wasn’t there.

Alice was eventually diagnosed with depression, then anxiety.

All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I didn’t care about anything at all. So, it was sort of like Mum was just – she would put in so much work to get me to school. Or if she realised I just couldn’t do school that day, she would then say, okay, well, at least just get out of bed or just get dressed for the day or just shower. But I ultimately didn’t – I spent about – I spent months not going to school… . I was still checking up on my emails from teachers and things like that, but I just couldn’t do it. And then somehow amongst all of that, I begun to develop some extreme anxiety and so sometimes when Mum would – she’d have to drive me to school. And it would be, maybe, 11:00am by the time we get there. And she’d be pulled up at the front and I’d be sitting in the car and she goes, “Okay, get out of the car. It’s okay. Time to go.” And I would just sit there. I go, “No, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” And I burst into tears. And I would just have this horrible anxiety. I couldn’t go to school.

Her focus at school understandably turned from learning to “surviving” day by day.

And basically, just the whole thought of doing school work was just completely out of my mind. It was the last thing I was focusing on. All I was trying to focus on was just surviving. Just trying to stay rested and able to function just a little bit

When she was at school, she did try to ask for help, but when the help was not forthcoming she ended up being “disruptive”:

I remember [when I used to go to English class] I used to sit there and say [to the teacher], “Okay, so I actually can’t understand this. Is there another way you can explain it to me? A different way?” And she would get frustrated because she’s explained it twice and she wants to move on with the class. And so – okay. I was – I was really – I hate asking for help, but I really put myself up there and I just went, I can’t understand this … after a while I realised that she wasn’t going to help me. And so, I decided just to go, well, f# you then. And I was just a disruptive nuisance in the class.

Alice continued by describing how she reacted:

Cheeky little one liners, chatting to the person next me. Not like full riots in the class or anything like that – not shouting or dancing or doing stupid things – standing on tables – but just – I wasn’t there to learn anymore. And I wasn’t respecting the teacher because she – I felt like she wasn’t respecting me, or she was – I was – I felt like I was completely ignored by her.

The school did try to make allowances for Alice. In Year 11, she was enrolled in a graphic design subject delivered from a TAFE (vocational) College along with other school-based subjects:

One day a week I got to go to Melbourne for my course. And even though I had to get up at 5:00am and get a train, I never missed – I never missed one unless I was ridiculously sick with the flu or something. So, it was sort of a big change around. I was – yeah – surrounded by people I liked, I was happy and so I just – I was doing kind of well at school. I was – I was doing the classes, I was doing the work – I’d picked some pretty easy subjects though. I was – I was doing food tech, I was doing graphics, I was doing another art – studio art. I wasn’t doing any sciences. I don’t think I was even doing maths.

Things did not go to plan, however, with her school subjects:

I couldn’t see the point … When are we actually going to put this into practice… ? It’s just all – there was just all print outs [work sheets]. And I just went, f# this. It wasn’t engaging at all.

Alice rationalised her learning and place at school in the following way:

In my mind, I was in charge of my own education from here. I had been, sort of, that whole year. And so, I think I just went, you’re [teacher] in charge of the class, but I’m just here in charge of myself and I’m going to be doing my own thing. And once they [teachers] knew that I wasn’t in their class to be learning what they were teaching me – well, I was still learning, but I just wasn’t in their class to be taught by them – they sort of went, oh, that’s not right.

This mindset helped Alice but, perhaps unsurprisingly, it did not go down well with all of her teachers.

[I began] to feel much more relaxed and happy that school – I’d begun to sort of slow down and sit back in classes because I wasn’t there tentatively taking notes. And I’d sit back and actually listen to what they were saying and realise, no, that’s actually not right. Or that’s – I don’t agree with this. And if they would ask for an opinion and I’d put my hand up and give the opinion of who thinks this, who thinks that – but if they didn’t like my opinion, they would sort of skip over it. And then so I’d go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, I’ve given my opinion on this topic, which you’ve left open for discussion, at least tell me why you think my opinion isn’t correct or where I’ve gone wrong … And they went, oh wait, so she does want to learn with us but, oh, she’s being a little bit rude about it because I was getting frustrated at this point and I had sort of stopped using all my manners. So, after a while I was wagging school a lot too. I just wouldn’t turn up to class or I’d just leave. And I got caught a few times, but I just didn’t really care.

She continued to wag and, on this basis, was expelled from school and “never went back”. Three years later, Alice is now enrolled in a Science Diploma at a city university with plans to go into nutrition, though as she is quick to point out, she failed science all through school. She concluded the interview, excited for the future:

And the thing is that I’m excited about learning because I know it’s going to be challenging because one thing that I sort of – it didn’t get taught to me, but it just sort of – it was never said directly, but it just sort of felt like it was all around me that I’m not smart enough. I’m failing because I’m not smart enough. When really, no, I was just depressed. But I’ve sort of slowly learnt that I actually am bright, and I am – I always thought that science was something that I could never do because I wasn’t smart enough. Then I realised, no actually – so, encouragement helps a lot.

Alice most definitely had a problem – in the first instance, her diagnosis of dyslexia followed by depression and anxiety. She certainly became a problem as can be seen by her “disruptive” behaviour in class, truancy and eventual expulsion. But was Alice the problem? I don’t think so. Instead, I would suggest that the problem was a mismatch between her unique, though not uncommon, learning needs and an overstretched, under-resourced educational system that was not able to support and challenge her and accommodate her particular learning and mental health needs. This distinction is important, as it moves from trying to “fix” or otherwise change Alice to instead concentrating efforts on teaching and learning practices and resourcing. Like many other children, she started off happy to go to school, but then, slowly but surely over time, her experience of school became increasingly negative. It is thus incumbent on educators and administrators to change the course of learning for children such as Alice to prevent the downward spiral into academic failure and despair that too many children currently experience.

The following book is written for and about young people such as Alice. It is based on the premise of putting children at the forefront of decision making. Once we place children at the centre of our thinking, we start to ask hard questions about the established order and the way that things have always been done, even if we do not always have the answers. For instance, how do we decide at what age should children start school? In many European countries it is 7 years of age, while in other countries it is 5. Why, and in whose best interest? Other questions should also be asked. For example, why does sitting down equal learning? Why is play undervalued? What is the best physical layout of schools? Why are art, music and movement undervalued? Can teachers be both authoritative and caring? Why do teachers have to be called Mr or Ms to show respect? Why don’t we celebrate mistakes? Why do schools give out printed stickers/certificates to reward children? These are not necessarily easy questions, but if we are genuine about supporting children’s learning and mental health, it is critical that we start to explore what works, for which student groups and when.

Children’s learning, emotional wellbeing and mental health will be enhanced if we find the right answers to these questions. This book intends to answer some of these questions but, ultimately, aims to reflect on ways in which children’s academic learning and mental health can be simultaneously promoted. By engaging in these questions and supporting a holistic approach, schools can create a safe, interactive and positive environment that allows all children to be fully engaged and actively involved in their own learning journey.

Chapter 2

The role of schools in promoting children’s mental health

Introduction

This chapter provides a rationale for promoting children’s mental health in schools. Though the core business of schools will always be the promotion of academic learning, a strong rationale will be made that schools need to address children’s mental health and wellbeing as a necessary co-requisite for literacy, numeracy and other areas of academia. Terms often used in this field will be defined, including mental health, mental illness and wellbeing. It is not the sole responsibly of schools to address young people’s mental health. Nonetheless, given the high prevalence of mental illness in children and the inseparable relationship between mental health, behaviour and learning, it is critical that schools work with students and their families in a holistic way, as part of a broader societal response and an important stakeholder of the “village” that helps nurture its young.

The role of schools

What is the role of schools? There appears to be some urgency in many parts of the world to refocus school efforts back to academic learning, as the following headlines suggest:

Schools under pressure as crowded curriculum and programs swamp literacy and numeracy

(Hore, writing for the Herald Sun, 2017)

National curriculum overcrowded and too advanced, say principals

(Knott, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, 2014)

Decluttered curriculum allows the right focus

(Butterfield, writing for The Age, 2018)

Likewise, there are reports that a Chinese high school has removed chairs from its cafeteria to encourage students to eat faster so they have mor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Series editor’s foreword
• 1 Alice’s story
• 2 The role of schools in promoting children’s mental health
• 3 The relationship between mental illness, wellbeing and academic achievement
• 4 Towards a school-wide model for supporting students’ mental health and academic learning
• 5 School culture and climate
• 6 Reconceptualising student behaviour
• 7 Teaching and learning
• 8 Partnerships
• 9 Inclusivity: celebrating diversity
• 10 Staff wellbeing
• 11 Trauma-informed schools
• 12 Making a difference: are we there yet?
• Index