1) A motorcyle, mental health, and teaching and learning
This is a Honda 250N Superdream. I bought an identical model when it came to market in 1978. For the next 10 years, I used motorcycles to travel to and from the three schools where I taught. One of my schools was 22 miles from home - a daily round trip of 44 miles. I have around 15 years experience of motorcycling in total. So what, you might be asking? All very interesting, but what on earth has this to do with mental health and teaching and learning in schools?
I am not teaching now. Together with my business partner, Suneta Bagri, I run Teach Well Toolkit. We support schools to implement a culture of staff wellbeing and mental health. Fast forward to 3 months ago.
At the age of 68, I decided I wanted to return to motorcycling. I don't have a car. It was expensive and I didn't use it sufficiently to justify the expense. My four children are adults. When I need a car, I hire one from a local car club. Some would (and have!) said I am living in the past and am too old for biking. My view is that we only live once and that not to have tried and predicting failure is worse than trying and failing.
Nostalgia kicked in and I decided to buy a rebuilt 1979 Honda Superdream 250N, the bike I had first owned from new, back in 1978. I was lucky. I found a restored model of that year with only 12,500 miles on the clock.
As the last time I rode a bike was in 2008, I booked a 'Back to Riding' course for a day on a bike loaned by the training school. At the end of the course, I booked another day. I was having real problems.
I found out that I had been trained badly in two important skills all those years ago. It related to controlling the bike at slow speed when cornering and coming to a stop. I had developed bad habits. Instinctively, when coming to a stop, I wanted to revert to my previous method. I felt unsafe stopping correctly and I was finding it very difficult to unlearn what I had learnt and done during all my years of motorcycling.
So, what, you might be asking, has this got to do with mental health? And how is it connected to teaching and learning?
On the second day of instruction, I was doing much better - at first. However, as time went on and I became more tired, I was beginning to make mistakes that I had not been making in the first hour or so of training. And this is where it all began to go horribly wrong.
The instructor lost patience. He began to criticise me, saying things like, 'If you don't stop putting your hand over the f****** brake, I'll remove it.' and 'For f***** sake, squeeze the rear brake' and 'No, no, no...'. Eventually, he shouted, 'We're going to stop for lunch. You're getting worse.'
This was so demoralising. I knew my age would make it difficult to unlearn bad habits, although I hadn't anticipated having to go back to basics. I felt a failure. That I had let myself down. Thoughts of having to sell the bike, of never being able to ride a motorcycle again, were going through my head. I nearly gave up then and there.
I haven't given up. I'm going to another motorcycle training school tomorrow. I am determined to keep going. I know when I overcome this problem, I will love being out on the road again.
Let's relate my experience to teaching in schools:
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It requires a huge amount of patience to teach. This is especially true if you have learners who have applied a skill incorrectly and need to unlearn what they have learned. If you are a PE teacher or football coach, you will relate to this. My instructor lost patience.
- A negative word can quickly demoralise a learner. We are hard-wired to focus on negativity, stemming from our need to recognise danger when we had to protect ourselves from other cave-dwellers. The instructor's negative words were going round and round in my head when I was trying to sleep that night. The words of praise I had also heard earlier in the session were crowded out.
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We have to teach learners to make mistakes without them regarding them as failures. Learners should be encourage to regard mistakes as learning opportunities. My instructor was telling me that every mistake was evidence of failure.
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We know that repetition develops long-term memories. But learners will not get the practice of learning experiences correct every time. To expect them to do so is unrealistic. I was increasing the percentage of times I was successful but, because it was not 100% of the time, I was being told it was not good enough.
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Finally, if we imagine learning as a bell curve, there comes a point where learners become tired of practising the same skill and they begin to make more mistakes. At this point, a break is needed. My instructor recognised this when he called the lunch break. However, it was too late. He had contributed to me making more mistakes and losing confidence.
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You might be asking: 'OK. I get this. But what has this to do with mental health?'
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Let's consider the instructor's behaviour. What might have caused it? He might have been:
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Tired.
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Recalling memories of his own frustration when learning to ride.
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Experiencing poor sleep patterns.
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Unable to put himself in my shoes, to be 'empathic'.
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Under the impression that the best way to teach me was to show 'tough love'.
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Experiencing relationship difficulties or having family-related worries.
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Concerned about his finances...or any number of other worries.
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The problem is that understanding why a teacher might behave negatively, while increasing empathy, is unlikely to help a learner. We must give teachers support so that they are able to extend their patience and increase their understanding. And this is where the mental health of school staff becomes relevant to our discussion.
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I see staff mental health as being a balance between self-care and the care that the school takes of its staff. Imagine a seesaw perfectly horizontal with self-care on one end of the see-saw and school care on the other.
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If a member of staff is struggling to take care of themselves and their end of the seesaw is dipping towards the ground, the school increases its support to bring the seesaw level again. Whether the reason for the dip is school or home-related should be unrelated to the support the school offers.
For the mental health of staff to feel supported, the culture of the school needs:
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To be open. Staff are clear about how to seek help and are not judged for doing so.
-
To accept that home-related, personal worries are treated equally with school-related issues.
-
Staff suffering from mental ill-health are not regarded as failures, in the same way that they would not be treated as failures if suffering from a physical illness.
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To be working towards a whole-school approach to both staff and pupil mental health.
I will now always use the analogy of motorcycle instruction in my own life to help me be a better trainer and coach.
What analogy will you use in yours?
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A negative word can quickly demoralise a learner. We are hard-wired to focus on negativity, stemming from our need to recognise danger when we had to protect ourselves from other cave-dwellers. The instructor's negative words were going round and round in my head when I was trying to sleep that night. The words of praise I had also heard earlier in the session were crowded out.
-
We have to teach learners to make mistakes without them regarding them as failures. Learners should be encourage to regard mistakes as learning opportunities. My instructor was telling me that every mistake was evidence of failure.
-
We know that repetition develops long-term memories. But learners will not get the practice of learning experiences correct every time. To expect them to do so is unrealistic. I was increasing the percentage of times I was successful but, because it was not 100% of the time, I was being told it was not good enough.
-
Finally, if we imagine learning as a bell curve, there comes a point where learners become tired of practising the same skill and they begin to make more mistakes. At this point, a break is needed. My instructor recognised this when he called the lunch break. However, it was too late. He had contributed to me making more mistakes and losing confidence.
You might be asking: 'OK. I get this. But what has this to do with mental health?'
Let's consider the instructor's behaviour. What might have caused it? He might have been:
-
Tired.
-
Recalling memories of his own frustration when learning to ride.
-
Experiencing poor sleep patterns.
-
Unable to put himself in my shoes, to be 'empathic'.
-
Under the impression that the best way to teach me was to show 'tough love'.
-
Experiencing relationship difficulties or having family-related worries.
-
Concerned about his finances.
...or any number of other worries. The problem is that understanding why a teacher might behave negatively, while increasing empathy, is unlikely to help a learner. We must give teachers support so that they are able to extend their patience and increase their understanding. And this is where the mental health of school staff becomes relevant to our discussion.
I see staff mental health as being a balance between self-care and the care that the school takes of its staff. Imagine a seesaw perfectly horizontal with self-care on one end of the see-saw and school care on the other.
If a member of staff is struggling to take care of themselves and their end of the seesaw is dipping towards the ground, the school increases its support to bring the seesaw level again. Whether the reason for the dip is school or home-related should be unrelated to the support the school offers.
For the mental health of staff to feel supported, the culture of the school needs:
-
To be open. Staff are clear about how to seek help and are not judged for doing so.
-
To accept that home-related, personal worries are treated equally with school-related issues.
-
Staff suffering from mental ill-health are not regarded as failures, in the same way that they would not be treated as failures if suffering from a physical illness.
-
To be working towards a whole-school approach to both staff and pupil mental health.
I will now always use the analogy of motorcycle instruction in my own life to help me be a better trainer and coach.
What analogy will you use in yours?