Whole-of-organisation approach to promoting well-being:
Reflecting on a nine year Australian qualitative longitudinal study, Johnson comments ‘Students valued teachers who actually listened to them! Teachers are often judged on their ability to listen to students.’ (Johnson, B., 2008)
Although written for pedagogical consideration, Johnson juxtaposes study-subjects’ display of resilience or non-resilience with contrasting terminology such as friendly and socially isolated, positive and victim oriented (i.e. blame others for their predicament), ‘in control’ versus impulsive, able to plan in contrast to unrealistic about goals and plans. These lists are headed by possible ‘At-risk’ concerns such as emotionally neglected, yelled at, abused, part of dysfunctional families amongst others. The reality for many learners in at-risk circumstances is their ecology is imbalanced (Bronfenbrenner 1979).
Cahill et al.’s composite table of Risk and Protective Factors include dropout, poor attachment to school and school failure contrasting positive school climate, sense of belonging, positive teacher-student relationships and opportunities for success (Cahill et al., 2017). The organisation with a whole-of-school approach can be dynamic in progressing toward school-wide care.
A concerted strategy of underpinning content delivery with elementary societal ground-rules will provide positive reinforcement and purpose. Using Cressey et al’s well-articulated acronym, C.A.R.E., trainers can provide learners with school connectedness by inarticulately, or overtly, embedding positive instruction and by modelling. Although designed for a much younger cohort, the following consideration still resonates well for positive development in an adult-learning environment.
C.A.R.E. (Cressey, J. et al., 2014)
· CLASS: ‘We care about our class, our classroom and belongings.
· ACADEMICS: We take responsibility for our academic learning, preparing for class.
· RESPECT: We respect one another. Every person deserves respect to feel safe and comfortable. We respect the opinions of the school community.
· EFFORT: We care about effort, putting effort into our schoolwork’.
“…It is important that teachers listen to their students, engage them as fellow human beings, recognise and understand their perspectives and world views…”(Johnson, B., 2008).
With strategic planning of engaging, relevant, informative and interesting classes, reciprocity of industry readiness, whole-school connectedness and life-long learning can be achieved with resulting mitigation of disengagement and learner attrition.
Together, involving all facets of learners’ ecology, we can support continuous improvement and lifelong education.
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