Keeping Minds Happy and Healthy

A handbook for teachers

Pat Guy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317204480
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Keeping Minds Happy and Healthy is a practical resource for teachers and shows how pupils can achieve and maintain excellent mental health. It focuses on identifying the main causes of unhappiness, stress and anxiety, by examining the difficulties a school system can inadvertently create for pupils. By developing resilience, empathic behaviour, social skills and self respect during childhood, pupils will better equipped to withstand the pressures of modern society and growing up.

With practical tip sheets and advice Keeping Minds Happy and Healthy suggests ways to create a more positive educational experience for all pupils. Pat Guy shows how schools can increase all pupils' well-being, enabling them to deal with the challenging situations they face as they move through education and into the adult world.

SECTION I The need for an inclusive education system that embraces and builds on pupil difference

This didn’t come to me through academic reading or study. It came to me through seeing apartheid and its impact on the people whom I had responsibility for as a priest.

(Trevor Huddlestone, religious and political activist)

Over recent years, concerns relating to the rise of mental health problems among children and young people of school age have increased. Discussions on the most appropriate support for pupils appear to focus on increased input at points of crisis, when the child’s or young person’s anxiety becomes obvious, perhaps through the improvement of links between schools and Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), counselling services or anti-bullying groups. However, if appropriate support could be given to pupils throughout their education, much of the unhappiness that seems to be part of modern childhood might be avoided. If schools could increase all pupils’ well-being, they might be better prepared for the challenging situations they will inevitably face as they move through school and into the adult world. By developing resilience, empathic behaviour, social skills and self-respect during childhood, pupils will be better equipped to withstand the negative pressures of modern society.

In order for this to happen, the education system needs to directly and actively promote pupils’ mental well-being, both to secure the emotional health of the general population and also to enable society to benefit from the diverse range of talents and skills of the population. ‘There is too narrow a focus on school outcomes, with a neglect of the vocational as well as the wider development of interests and attitudes essential for a contributing and personally fulfilling life’ (Sir Tim Brighouse 2015).

Society must adopt an approach towards education that is accepting of individual difference to enable pupils to move into adulthood as secure and confident individuals. An increased breadth of educational outcomes would benefit both the individual and society. The current educational system is over academically prescriptive and confuses the ability to perform well in examinations with intelligent behaviour. To succeed in life, an individual’s attitudes will be as important as their academic achievement. A pupil may excel in exams yet be unmotivated, have creative flair yet lack confidence, be academically able yet be awkward in social situations, be mathematically talented yet over anxious. If every young person is to maximise their potential, the curriculum must include opportunities to develop positive attitudes and strength of character. Exam qualifications will get the job interview, but other attributes will secure the job, with success in an interview a beginning rather than a final result. While at work, young people will need to collaborate with colleagues, be conscientious, manage unpleasant peers and awkward situations, resist the temptation to call in sick unnecessarily, cope when things go wrong, follow instructions from superiors, control their emotions, while simultaneously dealing with personal issues: relationships, family life, managing finances and maintaining their health.

How would the current system change if every pupil were destined to be an entrepreneur or self-employed? What should be taught in schools to prepare pupils for a future that cannot be envisaged? Currently the examination system is used to select and sort individuals for their future role in society, but how can we be certain of the specific skills adults will need in ten, twenty or fifty years time?

As a result of the emphasis placed on exam qualifications, many pupils have an unrealistic expectation of their potential after leaving school. Teachers are able to teach to the exam in a way that favours those pupils who learn facts presented in a structured, sequential manner, while others who prefer a more active or practical approach to learning are disadvantaged. As a result, some pupils will over-perform and others will under-perform in terms of their potential for future success.

Key point

Exams measure an individual’s ability to take exams.

Very few successful artists, athletes, musicians or actors will have an A* in Art, Sports Studies, Music or Drama ‘A’ Levels. When a pupil passes twelve GCSEs with top grades, this does not indicate an in-depth knowledge and interest in those subjects, but rather an in-depth knowledge of how to pass exams. Exams are not designed to identify individual talent but rather pupils’ ability to memorise and regurgitate syllabus content in a prescribed manner. Countless individuals have gone on to be successful in their chosen field with few formal qualifications: Alan Sugar, Elton John, Joss Stone, Walt Disney, Erin Brockovich, Steve Redgrave, Richard Branson, Zoe Wanamaker, David Beckham, Jennifer Aniston, John Major, Toyah Willcox, Ozzy Osbourne and Guy Ritchie. Significant numbers of high achievers were considered to have learning difficulties or destined for failure at school, while many of those considered to be high flyers at school failed to fulfil their apparent potential in adult life.

The school reports of a few successful adults

Sue Perkins (broadcaster): ‘What Sue lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in stupidity.’

Eric Morecambe (comedian): ‘I hate to say this, but Eric will never get anywhere in life.’

Beryl Bainbridge (novelist): ‘Though her written work is the product of an obviously lively imagination, it is a pity that her spelling derives from the same source. Her knowledge of Geography is so poor as to make one wonder if she is simple minded.’

Dame Judi Dench (actress): ‘Judi would be a very good pupil if she lived in this world.’

Winston Churchill (politician): ‘He is so regular in his irregularity that I really don’t know what to do.’

John Lennon (musician): ‘Certainly on the road to failure … hopeless … rather a clown in class … wasting other pupils’ time.’

Stephen Fry (comedian, playwright and novelist): ‘He has glaring faults and they have certainly glared at us this term. English: Bottom, rightly.’

Charles Darwin (scientist): ‘I was considered by all my masters and my father a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.’

Thomas Edison (businessman and inventor): ‘Edison’s mind wandered so much in school that his teacher referred to him as being “addled”.’

Jilly Cooper (novelist): ‘Jilly has set herself an extremely low standard which she has failed to maintain.’

Roy Hudd (entertainer): ‘Has a ragbag mind stuffed with information of no possible interest to anyone but himself.’

Peter Ustinov (actor, director, playwright): ‘Shows great originality, which must be curbed at all costs.’

Reference

• Brighouse, T. (2015) We have much to learn from the spirit of ’45. Times Educational Supplement, 27 March.

CHAPTER 1 Pupils' experience of education

Aspects of the current education system that can demoralise pupils

DOI: 10.4324/9781315562483-2

There are aspects of the current educational system that demoralise pupils and add unnecessary stress and pressure to their lives. This chapter will explore five negative aspects of pupils’ school experience: the development of unhelpful mindsets that serve to undermine children’s self-confidence, the apparent preference for extrovert behaviour over quiet and thoughtful behaviour, a failure to acknowledge the variety of children’s learning styles, a lack of appreciation of the impact of chronological age on performance, and the overuse of testing. These aspects do not stand alone but are closely interrelated.

It is within the power of all schools to reduce the impact of such practices and to extend the breadth of provision they are able to offer their pupils.

The development of unhelpful mindsets

Carol Dweck (2006) of Stanford University has identified two types of ‘mindset’ that individuals can possess: a fixed or a growth mindset. Young people with a fixed mindset believe their ability levels are set at birth, therefore performance in school is predetermined and their ability, or lack of ability, is a genetic trait that they can do nothing about. Other pupils will possess a growth mindset, believing they can improve their attainment through persistence and hard work.

Unfortunately the current education system predisposes children towards the development of a fixed mindset through, for example, the introduction of formal teaching approaches in Key Stage 1 when children are too young to cope with such methods. The children may be developmentally incapable of paying attention, producing neat work, spelling key words or recognising phonic blends and so are set up to fail and consider themselves to be stupid. Belief in a fixed mindset will be perpetuated when secondary schools focus on exam results, encouraging pupils to perceive themselves purely in terms of exam success or failure. Intelligent pupils are good at exams and tests, therefore pupils who get poor results in exams and tests are not intelligent.

Dweck believes that when pupils possess a fixed mindset and consistently compare their performance with others, or are compared unfavourably to supposedly high achievers, their levels of motivation in school will decline.

Watkins (2010) makes a similar distinction between pupils’ attitudes to academic work, referring to fixed and growth mindsets as performance orientation and learning orientation. In performance orientation, pupils believe that ability equals success, leading to negative self-evaluation when a task proves difficult. In learning orientation, pupils believe that effort leads to success, that everyone can improve and that personal satisfaction will increase when a difficult task is accomplished.

Possessing a fixed mindset can affect individuals in different ways. Pupils who see themselves as failures in school will assume that they were born stupid and are powerless to improve. They will become disillusioned when faced with work they do not immediately understand, and imagine that collaborating with others or being observed working problems out in a steady, methodical way will provide further evidence of their slow mind. Some pupils may be tempted to take shortcuts and cheat rather than be seen to be struggling. Cheating will have implications for their future learning as new information will need to be built on their prior understanding. Some of these pupils will withdraw and dismiss school as being ‘boring’. Others will channel their frustration into sabotaging those situations that make them feel uncomfortable, creating problems for staff and peers.

Those who have been told they are intelligent may have private concerns that they are not worthy of the high-ability label and be unwilling to challenge themselves, experiment or collaborate with others in case they are seen to fall short of expectations. Some of these pupils will become aggressive in defence of their intellect.

Children with fixed mindsets become adults with fixed mindsets and will take their attitudes into their future careers and adult life.

In February 2011, a judicial review deemed Michael Gove’s decision as Secretary of State for Education to axe ‘Building Schools for the Future’ projects in six local authority areas to be unlawful, as he had failed to consult before imposing the cuts. Many politicians have limited knowledge of education or child development, but believe themselves capable of taking decisions that have long-lasting effects on schools. When politicians have fixed mindsets and feel that they are part of an intellectual elite, they will not always appreciate the wisdom of consulting those with specialist knowledge and experience and listening to and considering their advice. In March 2013, some 100 academics warned of the dangers posed by Michael Gove’s new National Curriculum. Gove, an English graduate from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, retorted that the critics were ‘Marxist’ and ‘Enemies of Promise’, that ‘there is good academia and bad academia’.

Extroverts v introverts

Society benefits from having a range of talents at its disposal, but educational approaches in Western countries tend to favour the extrovert in the classroom. When introverts are not recognised and valued in school, the message is given to children and young people that extrovert behaviour is the desirable norm. This assumption will follow introverted pupils through school, sapping the confidence of quieter, more thoughtful children. The contribution made by different personality types must be recognised in schools to ensure young people move into the adult world valuing the skills that different individuals bring to a situation.

The danger exists that extroverts with exam ability and fixed mindsets will thrive and dominate major walks of life. While some cultures admire outgoing, chatty, self-confident types, other cultures see quiet thoughtfulness as preferable. Eastern philosophers would see self-promotion and over-confidence as a deplorable personality trait and would consider introverts more likely to think things through carefully before speaking, observing and listening rather than promoting their own interests. Reflective individuals will tend to listen more than talk, think before speaking and may express themselves better in writing than in conversation. It is often observed that those pupils who talk most in the classroom think...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Section 1 The need for an inclusive education system that embraces and builds on pupil difference
• Section 2 Developing pupils’ self-confidence and emotional well-being within the mainstream context
• Section 3 Learning rather than teaching: three possible solutions
• Section 4 Ten top tips and advice sheets
• Index