One Big Idea: Today, school leaders attend to a broad influence of mental health issues in their school communities; the challenge is finding the time and resources to address what’s upstream, where today’s problems were once in a more manageable, nascent form, and where tomorrow’s challenges simmer.
Why It Matters: Another wave of research connects mental health issues with upstream causes. Here are two podcasts – both based on recent books – that could be valuable motivators for faculty summer professional development and school wide discussion.
- Why the Kids Aren’t Alright (informed by the author’s newest book)
“American kids are the most free, most privileged kids in all of history. They are also the saddest, most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record.
“After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?”
Why There Is Hope: Understanding the etiology of this crisis, while reminded of the most basic principles of child and adolescent development, will trigger analysis and creative strategy applied to your own school community, including your work with parents.
Here’s The Gift: Addressing this issue with candor and thoughtful strategy, puts you and your staff in a position to address – to lead! – that which drove all of us into education: making a difference in society through the lives of our students.
You are a member of the Global Schools Coalition: Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder was founded as a nonprofit – by educators – to help schools foster character in ways they can’t do alone – the kind that comes from proximity to real challenges. You are invited to connect with us. Today, we are making a difference in the lives of students and faculty throughout the Coalition. From faculty, students, and parents we here the word “transformative” consistently. Our model connects what you see in front of you and what is forming upstream.
Find SStS Upstream: a parable to remind you of looking in that direction.
You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water – a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to shore. Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her a well. Then another struggling child drifts into sight … and another … and another. The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, you see your friend wading out of the water, seeming to leave you alone. “Where are you going?” you demand. Your friend answers, “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.”
HERE’S TO PROACTIVE LEADERSHIP!