School’s Out; The Awakening of Minds and Souls is In
By: Anika Haque
Tags: Schools, Well Being, Education, Pandemic

Express yourself. Discuss your passions. Share your experiences and connect with freshly brewed perspectives. But most importantly of all, never stop learning.

More than 50 individuals from across the world came together exuding exactly these values and vigour in a virtual #NextGenEdu community gathering last Wednesday 16 September. While we probably could have excitedly exchanged ideas for hours, for this particular gathering, we focused on the “Wellbeing and Mental Health in Reopened Classrooms”.

Well-being: More than just feeling well

The session kicked off with the crucial question: What does well-being mean to you? While it initially appeared a simple enough question, the moment we tried to answer, we unexpectedly paused. Amidst our jam-packed lives, we really had to stop and reflect within our breakout rooms, and break it down.

Of course mental health was connected with well-being, but we couldn’t deny how well-being required a harmony between mind, body, spirit,emotions and sociability, to give off a state of contentment and happiness. Along with these general notions, while there also existed a collective phenomenon in terms of environments enabling us to build consciousness and human capacity, well-being really seemed to vary from person to person.

The Now is Pregnant With the Future

It was then time to jot down our expectations and face a reality check. When posed with the question of what we wanted for children, “happiness” was the clear winner in the room, followed by — peace, joy, security, love and humanity — the common thread being that they were all components contributing towards the well-being of children, something that they could enjoy and apply right now, in the very present.

But were our schools creating environments for children to experience all of this? In answering the next question — what do schools teach? — our insights concluded that there was little overlap. Over a century, schools were imparting knowledge and skills to children, alongside notions of compliance and conformity, which supposedly prepared them for forthcoming adult work. Instead of taking a backseat, if well-being were combined with the existing taught components, it would allow the students to thrive so much more! They would no longer be majorly bloated with planning for the future, but actually be living in “the now”.

Wake me up: When schools are more than just filling up

To prime our minds for possible changes in schools going forward, we considered some real life examples already implementing innovative methods.

Over 30 years ago, Sean Bellamy opened up Sands School in the UK, a school that grew partly out of the philosophies of Rabindranath Tagore, to foster “democratic education”. Here, no uniform or hierarchy existed; the teachers were paid the same as the maintenance staff, and adults, children and adolescents participated in the running of the school together.

The school valued nurtured risk, where children were allowed to make choices inherently fraught with risk, yet were supported by adults as they grew throughout their journeys. After all, education should be the exploration of yourself.

Through Sean’s natural storytelling prowess, his passion made even the most mundane of activities exciting. This translated across Sands School, where students felt that school was an adventure — a place worth spending precious hours of their lives everyday!

Across the globe, in the Global South in India, Project Rangeet set out on a mission to teach kids around the world the values of society, sustainability and self. However, their methods were different; they focused on music, art and storytelling to imbue the children with these values, and thus aimed to “unlock the inner superhero in every child.”

Project Rangeet placed significant emphasis on empathy — since it was essential in conveying the lesson of how everyone deserved to feel safe at school, both offline and online. Empathy could prevent stigma and discrimination. With social distancing measures required for the COVID-19 crisis, children needed to zero in on their empathy and resilience more than ever, to stay grounded and connected with each other.

I won’t give up…I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might

By centering on the well-being and emotional intelligence of the students, both Sands School and Project Rangeet didn’t just fill up schools with humans, but woke up their souls. While the COVID-19 crisis set us back 20 years in terms of sustainable development, both teams stressed how this also opened up opportunities for grabs. This was our chance to stop, listen, and redesign schools, by incorporating wellbeing and mental health through intergenerational dialogue of co-creation. By the end of the session, we had already compiled various ideas to kickstart this revolution, ranging from breathing techniques to daily mental check-ins.

Final takeaways? Resilience would be key; empathy had to be a must. Armed with these superpowers at school, our children would be ready to take on anything.