Leadership

BEING HAPPY AT SCHOOL!

gcLi LeadershipPedagogy Of Leadership®, Student Leadership

By Ted Fish, Ed.D., gcLi Executive Director

 

We live in an accelerating world.


Almost two decades ago, Pearl Kane, the Founding Director of the Klingenstein Center and my Doctoral Advisor, spoke with concern about how busy teachers were. Between their classes, their club commitments, advisories, and coaching, the free time in a teacher’s life – essential for renewal and self-reflection – was distressingly narrow.

Ten years ago, when gcLi was still in its infancy, the most common worry I began hearing from teachers on behalf of their students was about schedules. Between AP classes, sports practice, extracurricular commitments and homework, middle and upper schoolers had little space to relax, play, sleep, or explore their unique, creative interests–all essential elements in forging a leadership core.

Looking back, those seem like halcyon days! Email had only just arrived, there was no social media to speak of, and texting wasn’t even a word. With the power of technology, the outside world is now penetrating into every available moment. Teachers are expected to answer cell phones or email at hours that used to be sacrosanct; many teens feel obliged to attend to their online selves 24/7, lest they lose status and friends.

With the waning of personal time and boundaries, it is no surprise that we are seeing unprecedented levels of stress in teachers and students. A few figures:

  • A 2017 report in the U.K. found a 20% higher incidence of teachers reporting symptoms of stress—including depression, anxiety, and panic attacks—than the working population as a whole.
  • A 2016 report in the U.S. found that 46% of teachers reported having a lot of stress at work – a number that ranked higher than every other profession, except for nurses with whom we were tied.
  •  A 2016 report out of the University of British Columbia found that in classrooms where educators reported greater burnout or emotional fatigue, the cortisol levels of their students, as measured in saliva samples, were higher. “This suggests that stress contagion might be taking place in the classroom among students and their teachers,” wrote Eva Oberle, the lead author.
  • And in the Fall 2017 report from the American College Health Assessment, with a sample of 37,000 college students, 47% of females and 29% percent of males reported experiencing overwhelming anxiety at some point in the last month; 25% and 18% reported feeling so depressed it was difficult to function; and 45% and 36% had been very lonely.

 

Let’s take a moment to parse through these findings. Teachers are experiencing as much stress in their jobs as people who are engaged with issues of life and death every day. Almost 1 in 2 women and 1 in 3 men feel anxiety at college that is overwhelming. And our typically more relaxed neighbors to the North are speaking about a stress contagion in their schools!

If you are inclined to dismiss these findings as applicable only to public or underprivileged school populations, please reconsider. I’ve been watching these trends play out over the last decade through the eyes of hundreds of gcLi graduates, and they’ve been confirmed in recent years by two world-renowned psychologists who make their living attending to the social and emotional climate in our schools. Something is happening societally. It is distinctly bad. And it is accelerating at a frightening pace.

Which brings us to the work of LEADERSHIP.

Lately, I have been refashioning my understanding of who a leader is and what a leader does. A leader is someone who sets a tone for a group. It’s a tone that addresses a problem or builds a solution. And it is set with such force it pushes out other thoughts, emotions, stereotypes, beliefs, and patterned behaviors like a wave that pushes the water back into the ocean and creates a safe, even sacred, island. We will not be swept into those currents, the leader says, in spite of all the reasons and rationalizations that may pull us there. A leader clarifies: this is who we are and this is who we will be.

Or to vary the image slightly—a leader can also be one who sees that the status quo no longer suffices and creates a wave that takes the group where it needs to go. A new pattern. A new vision. A re-interpretation of the core values that made the community great – but now, because the surrounding context has altered – need a refresh.

I think the latter metaphor is particularly apt today. I think because of all that is going on in our world, we need to create schools that are as much about the quality of life now as they are preparatory. I think we need to take a stand for an education that prepares children to lead fulfilling, wholesome lives. And that begins by investing in happiness.

A famous British economist by the name of Richard Layard, who was held in such high regard for his research that he was Lorded, has conducted a series of studies in the last two decades that statistically seek to answer the question: What is the good life? When it’s all said and done, what are the most important predictors of life satisfaction as adults?

If you were to choose between (a) academic achievement, (b) the capacity to engage in socially appropriate behavior and (c) emotional health, what would you answer?

The findings were not even close. The statistical correlations between emotional health and fulfilling adults lives were twice as strong as socially appropriate behavior and almost four times greater than academic achievement. In the words of the researchers, “The strongest factors predicting a happy adult life is not children’s qualifications but their emotional health.” School is extremely important, it turns out, but not because of the academic rigor. Its importance stems from the “relative emphasis schools put on the wellbeing and happiness of their pupils.”

The best way to prepare students for good lives – lives of meaning and fulfillment – is to invest in their wellbeing and happiness right now.

How much emphasis is your school putting on the wellbeing and happiness of your pupils? And given the research just noted, what might you change?


I think these are questions that need to be front and center before every administrative team, every classroom teacher and counselor, every advisor and coach. The answers will necessarily vary—they will reflect every school’s culture, every school’s DNA. But at some level, I believe these seven elements need to be addressed:

  1.  Reduce cell phone and social media use: “It’s no longer a question,” says Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, noted expert on social media and youth and a gcLi Institute Scholar. “Cell phone and social media use is correlated with depression, anxiety, reduced social and emotional skills, and a host of other scary outcomes. We’re in the midst of a societal epidemic. They have been built with addiction in mind. Their use needs to be restricted.”
  2.  Teach students media – or pointedly – social media literacy skills, so they can successfully navigate one of the major stressors in their lives. Train adults, as well.
  3.  Teach classes or whole courses in social and emotional learning, beginning in pre-school and up through high school, so they learn the basic skills that underlie successful human relationships – the precursor to happiness. In the words of gcLi Scholar Emerita, JoAnn Deak, “These are neurological pathways that have to be exercised and strengthened through thousands of hours of practice.”
  4.  Allow our students to do less: less homework, more sleep, and more unstructured time to relax, create, and explore, both in and out of school.
  5.  Teach meditation and other stress-management tools. If 1 in 2 college females and 1 in 3 males report overwhelming anxiety in college, they need additional tools. There are proven methods that reduce stress on the nervous system, that, practiced enough, produce lasting resilience in the brain. Everyone should learn them.
  6.  Make joy and happiness a central goal of faculty, student, and school life. Involve students, parents, and faculty in the discussion. Remember the term “stress contagion?” Happiness and ease have been found to be contagious, as well.
  7.  And last: create cultures rooted as much in kindness, caring, and joy, as they are in excellence. This is the ultimate preparation for a good and meaningful life.

 

In every era, in every generation, leaders are called to recognize patterns that are threatening human welfare – or to see untapped possibilities for human good. It is time for all leaders in our schools to help reclaim happiness. And it is critical to build the skills so that our students – and we – may remain so.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]Ted Fish has served as the Executive Director of the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute since 2009. He is an experienced teacher, educational consultant, and speaker. Dr. Fish holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and a master’s in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, as well as a master’s in business administration from the University of New Mexico.