I’m a teacher who can’t be arsed... AIBU?

[EffYouSeeKaye]

... with all the Emotional Well-Being shenanigans these days. Honestly, it’s overkill. Can I just TEACH please? With the usual (already massively time consuming) actual pastoral care included but not this whole new level of FAFF.

They don’t want it. They don’t need it. They don’t want to think about it all. the. time.

They need the normality of lessons. Learning. Keeping their brains positively occupied with acquiring useful skills and knowledge.

They don’t need an overload of (often crap and patronising) storybooks and colouring activities.

Pleeeeease???!? Enough now.

AIBU?

I am not a teacher and I agree with you OP.

And I say this as the mother of a DC in year 7 who has always struggled with PSHE or whatever it's called these days.

They need as much school normality as you can give them, not being reminded every day of how stressfull and unusual things are at the moment!

My DD is a teacher on the International circuit but doesn’t seem to have the same issues. I now understand why she left the UK. Have you read the fb group Life after teaching. No wonder they are leaving in droves.
There was nothing like this help when I was at school. My mother suffered MH . The woman lost 3 babies and she had split with my dad who died from lung cancer when I was 13. I just got on with it even though I was bullied because of all this.
I still believe in education though. My DD is a science teacher and DS an Engineer in food production.

Just a mum but mine hate it. They want school to go back to how it was.

I feel your pain EffYouSeeKaye.

I don't know what you can do about it at the moment, if anything, but it does look as though things are improving quickly so just tell yourself, this too will pass.

What makes kids anxious IS school.

The endless assessments and exams. The endless target setting and reporting. The use of GCSE grades from Year 7. The reduction of the curriculum down to nothing but what is needed for exams.

Shoving a bit of mindfulness into PSHE lessons is all a load of tick-boxing crap that even the kids recognise as being ironic in an environment where, outside of those PSHE lessons, they're being stressed out by constant messaging around self worth being connected to academic success.

My students (I'm a secondary school teacher) have been like different children this year with the cancellation of exams. With the pressure off, they've loved being in school. We've been able to do so many projects and creative activities, and learn stuff for the pleasure and sake of it rather than for an exam. It's been a joy to be able to teach them something I love and want to teach them rather than something from the GCSE or A Level syllabus. Obviously the pandemic has taken its toll on some of them, but for most, school has become a haven from the outside world - a place where there's no stress, and no pressure. In normal years, that would be the complete opposite.

Teachers have been saying the entire system of testing needs overhauling for years. But the exam boards make so much money out of the process that it's never going to change. Profit comes before our kids, apparently.

So instead, we're going to continue to let them spend their formative years stressed out to the extreme by a rigid and uninspiring exam-led education system, continue to see mental health issues rise, continue to simultaneously cut mental health funding for young people, and then pretend we're doing something about it by rolling out a new PSHE curriculum that shows we care.

Real root and branch change is needed. But while education is treated as a political football, it's never going to happen.

There are a reasonable amount of mumsnetters who are very open about their own mental health struggles so I am very surprised with the vote results. If today's adult population had more mental health lessons as children we would be a different society today. What surprises me is the absolute bollocks kids learn in school like working out the inside measurement of a triangle or other such stuff that they will never use in real life but schools don't spend enough time on basic things like learning to budget etc.

My year 11 son is stressed, I can tell. He’s withdrawn and just not himself.. no exams, just assessments, which is another word for tests.. everyday. No study leave, worrying if the teachers like him enough to pass him.. what will he do if he doesn’t get enough points for a levels.. what if he doesn’t pass maths and to be honest it’s shit!

@Blueemeraldagain

I’m also a teacher and feel like a lot of this mental health stuff is lip service and the students who are genuinely struggling are over-looked.

This. Absolutely.

Couldn’t agree more with the posters who have stated that the problem is school itself. The curriculum is dire, the methods of judging kids are outdated, unfair and stressful, I could go on but that’s another thread entirely...

@EffYouSeeKaye

If anything I have taught my younger kids that they are stronger now, they have learned about dramatic change and now they are big and brave and amazing!

Love this!! I feel the same about my own children. I’m fed up with reading about all the EWB that has been going on at their school in the same every week newsletter. I’ll do that, thanks. You just teach them, yeah? And step in if they are clearly struggling - as you normally would. Stop telling them they are all probably anxious / stressed / depressed. The power of suggestion and labelling is so dangerous.

Power of suggestion is very dangerous! My 5 year old before lockdown was so scared of school. It was awful. Every morning she would be in tears (this was when she was in nursery) then half way through nursery lockdown happened. She then started reception, this was on and off due to bubble bursts. Then Christmas came and yet another lockdown.parents evening last week her teacher said she couldn't believe she was so confident now. She now goes to school with a huge smile and loves getting her bag ready on a Sunday evening. Lockdown helped my daughter! Dont get me wrong, I also have a 7 year old who seems a little more sensitive. We are working with her. But I am not telling her she is depressed or anything. She is getting better slowly. The thing that helped her? Well, I told her when she gets angry (never happens in school just at home) She shouldn't shout, she should close her mouth and run to give me a cuddle. This shows her love and security. She also gets a calm cuddle and this helps her to express her feelings to me calmly.

Ok, this won't work for every child. Some children are just fine and others are really struggling. But don't tell my 5 year old she may be anxious when she is now more confident than ever. Don't suggest to my 7 year old she is suffering from anxiety or anger management issues when right now I have it all in hand.

Yes my 13 year old is suffering, she refuses to say she is depressed. Her words were 'mum I feel broken, but my dad just died, I am not depressed, I am feeling grief. I am sick of people assuming I am depressed. The meaning of depression has been really destroyed'

I do thank teacher who stop and ask my DD if is ok, if she is red eyed in school or looking a bit pale. But no teacher needs to become pastoral/counsellors or social workers. My kids have missed enough of professional teaching. Just teach my kids. Because whilst I was trying to do your job I realised you lot are bloody geniuses teaching multiple children at different levels! Leave the mental health to the professionals! We need you to teach our kids!

My god I ramble! Also I am aware my punctuation and grammar = shocking. I am very tired and have suddenly become nervous as I know this thread has many teachers! I have forgotten how to write 😂

I practice yoga and meditation. I would not recommend starting meditation/ mindfulness when you have mental health problems unless you have the go ahead from a therapist or what not. . The best time to learn is when you dont need it and feel in a happy place. the reason being is all kinds of mental gunk that you didnt even know you carried about or hadnt thought of for years can come to the surface and can be too much if you are already dealing with stuff and often you need a teacher/threapist to help sieve through it...... all sorts of emotions can surface. So if you are feeling pissed off it can in fact become amplifed..... also yoga is just a bunch of stretches in itself there isnt anything that mystic or enlightening in itself but that is my view......

Well said OP. Kids are far tougher than anyone gives them credit for

@Whyamiwastingtime

I practice yoga and meditation. I would not recommend starting meditation/ mindfulness when you have mental health problems unless you have the go ahead from a therapist or what not. . The best time to learn is when you dont need it and feel in a happy place. the reason being is all kinds of mental gunk that you didnt even know you carried about or hadnt thought of for years can come to the surface and can be too much if you are already dealing with stuff and often you need a teacher/threapist to help sieve through it...... all sorts of emotions can surface. So if you are feeling pissed off it can in fact become amplifed..... also yoga is just a bunch of stretches in itself there isnt anything that mystic or enlightening in itself but that is my view......

This makes so much sense. Thank you.

Agreed we’re being asked to pay lip service it really pisses me off. Luckily I have colleagues who see sense and we tend to ‘lose’ the well-being booklets with pointless activities in and just chat to our kids, ask them how they are, sometimes do quizzes if they feel like it, tell jokes. Sometimes we do short meditations for kids on YouTube if it’s appropriate. I wouldn’t get away with it if they didn’t have SEN but well-being to them means chilling out, not being asked to do more work, and I think that probably applies to most kids. We also got asked to submit questions to SLT from the kids, one of ours asked why can’t we do more fun stuff, even just a day.

My god I ramble! Also I am aware my punctuation and grammar = shocking. I am very tired and have suddenly become nervous as I know this thread has many teachers! I have forgotten how to write 😂

Don't be. We often see the same words spelled wrong so many times, we begin to question if we were the ones spelling it wrong all along...

If it's any consolation the same guff is playing out in a few adult workplaces - we're massively overstretched - and now we're somehow expected to find hours to spend on wellness bllx No need to point out that this is the idea was cooked up by those who are still wfh - if they came in and helped, we mightn't be less frazzled ffs

Some kids don't want to talk about their feelings. This absolutely a million times over. They just don't.
This and assessments [ angry]
There should be way more in the way of fun and getting the children back together rather than mental health and assessments.

Oh good lord yes. I am a trained science teacher, I am not a mental health professional so I find teaching PSHE widely outside my comfort zone. I have three degrees in science, a teaching qualification and more than a decades teaching experience, I know my s*. But would I be able to teach French with a week's notice, with no training? No, of course not, that's ridiculous. Just because we teach one subject fine, doesn't mean we can teach anything else competently. At the very least PSHE should be an actual subject taught by subject specialists, and what would be even better is if actual mental health professionals could be on hand when necessary. We can but dream. After everything else we've been expected to do this year that blatantly wasn't in the job description, I've realised that to this government a teacher is just a babysitter, and any labour that they can get on the cheap via teachers is fair game.

That should have been

Agree entirely with you. I work in health care and am concerned that people with genuine mental health issues - child and adult - will get lost in a deluge of people who are worried they have mental health issues after the pandemic. (Obviously some people do, it’s been tough).
The media has overdone reporting MH issues without really being helpful. If you’re told you surely have MH problems often enough you’ll start to believe it. Good excuse for them to produce another MH celeb / royal related story to sell papers.
People with real mental health issues will the ones who suffer.
Plus if you’re told you’re a lost generation, you have something to blame everything on and take no responsibility.
Even pre COVID the issue was there eg as kids we worried about exams - now kids “suffer from stress and anxiety” before exams which is so much more medicalised. And whereas competent counselling definitely has a place, how much more damage do badly trained / under trained counsellors do?
Counselling has become a panacea for any problem. It’s not. Teach kids emotional resilience, independence and responsibility so they grow up into well rounded human beings rather than learning a victim mentality at a young age.

My Y5 DS rolls his eyes at all the mental health stuff at school. He felt they totally over-egged the whole return to school post covid thing. I agree there are plenty of kids in need but surely teachers have a clue who they might be? Blanket approach is tedious for many and potentially creates a culture encouraging people to obsess about their mental well-being / over-labelling or diagnosis / over-medicalisation.

Sorry but I did mean to say, that I am sure people are right here, that much of this is driven by OFSTED. I worked in a different part of education sector and all the trends were driven by them. Not in a good way unfortunately.

The idea that we can do some work to improve mental health then go back to normal is bizare. We need eduction that puts the children at the centre, that takes a holistic approach to learning and behaviour and classrooms and staff that are approachable and safe, welcoming and consistant. Until we have this as a basic children's learning will continue to suffer alongside their mental health.

Ds wanted me to tell the scholl that even thinking about the Wellbeing day was detrimental to his mental health. 🤣

I take that they're trying, but it's not helpful to all.

And I agree with the poster that said that too much telling them "this must be effecting your mental health" is not helpful. My dd does have mental health issues. She was loving lockdown until she started being told that. Now she'll tell you how terribly it effected her.

Less talking about, more hands on therapy, get them gardening together, bring in animals to pet (and discuss why these things help with wellbeing) get them in fresh air playing together and teach them about including those who might not be included, show them how to recharge in a physical sense, I don't constantly talking about it via a sat down lesson is the way forward here. One of our schools is great at doing these sort of things, but it's a small school so it's easier to plan for whole school well being days