Emily Hehir
In order to address the current crisis of confidence & self-worth in young people, including increasing cases of disordered eating/exercise, we must focus on prevention.
It is my belief that the cause of many people failing to pursue or even identify their passions/callings, or to ever feel ‘good enough’ is the limitations placed on them by their own minds. That is, uncertainty, self-doubt and self-criticism cripple their potential and all these are a result of the thoughts they have – which are normalised & habitualised by narrow & singular stories of success.
If we are going to reroute the future, young people in particular must be given the opportunity, within mainstream eduction, to learn about: why & how the mass media they are constantly exposed to operates and how to become ‘resilient’ to it; to learn ‘mindfulness’ (that they need not be a passive recipient of every thought they have); that we have the power to write their own, more valid & relevant stories of success.
http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/41092 Responses to Emily Hehir
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Emily Hehir says:
Hi Jen,
Thanks so much for reading what I had to say and for your response.
I completely agree it is not appropriate to expect teachers to cover all the material I am suggesting is so crucial to modern children’s (especially girls) development. I emphasise with your comment that there is an ever-increasing amount of content schools are pressured to cover. This is why I think of myself as abit of an advocate for a “revolution” of sorts in the way we educate our children.
Sir Ken Robinson is influential and inspirational in this area – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=share
And I read this article the other day that ties in with my dreams for a better approach: http://dowser.org/reading-writing-empathy-the-rise-of-social-emotional-learning/I am first to acknowledge I am young, naive and idealistic, but what I hope is that important and age-old skills such as literacy and numeracy might one day be integrated into discussions and lessons that facilitate emotional development, our ideas about gender roles, media and our early constructions of self-hood. For example, can’t a literacy class include, even at an early age, a discussion about who has power in certain ads, why they do, who has been photo-shopped, why they have? Perhaps I am ignorant to the fact this already happens in some curriculums. It just alarms me the lack of diversity of great role models and the narrow definitions of success girls learn at a young age….and guys have narrow constructs laid down for them too….we must be able to equip them to survive in a very different world to the one that existed when the frameworks of their curriculum was drawn up…
It is tricky to engage students I agree, but with the media unlikely to change nor regulation be implemented anytime soon, I feel like education is our most powerful tool. perhaps we could be more bold with what we expect of them, and engage with the crisis that can occur when students aspire to idealised media images…I can think of edgy activities and discussions that could still integrate crucial literacy skills…??
Why/how of mass media is taught in mainstream education, the difficulty being that students are often not interested or engaged in analysing the media they are presented with. Also many students often simply do not believe the underlying messages/purposes of mass media which influences their lives. I’m not saying that teachers should give up, but that although there are many things students should learn it’s more complicated than just introducing something into the curriculum (not that I think you were simplifying the issue like this).
I agree that it is essential that we start teaching resilience in schools. So many students have no resilience whatsoever and have difficulty coping with events and issues which although seeming insurmountable at the time are actually fairly normal things to experience. I think mindfulness is something which goes hand in hand and should also be introduced in schools. However, I question where curriculum planners are to find the time for this? There is so much pressure on teachers to raise society’s children, taking over much of the responsibility previously taken by, and placed on, parents. The discussion over teaching manners in schools is a perfect example of this. I think there is room to integrate things such as resilience and mindfulness into existing curriculum, however with so many things already trying to be fit in, and in many areas dropping literacy and numeracy rates, there is a risk of trying to do everything and doing nothing very well. That said, how can resilience and mindfulness be made a priority?
I think that enabling young people to write their own stories of success – and subsequently redesign & challenge prevailing notions of what success is – is a powerful action that can help address the 2 previous issues of challenging mass media and building resilience and mindfulness. If young people have confidence in themselves their learning outcomes will improve, as will their resilience levels.
Obviously much of the responsibility for these issues falls to schools, but they then also need support to enable young people to face, and deal with, the world of tomorrow.