Tag: climate

Wellbeing thoughts

The other week I have a discussion on wellbeing in schools with Mark Anderson as part of a recording for Tip Top Tips Edu; you can watch the recording here.  The particular focus was on support staff such as Directors of IT, Network Managers and other IT support based roles.   I therefore thought it would be useful to share some further thoughts from my discussion with Mark and also some thoughts that arose post discussion.

Wellbeing:  What does your school do?

I think one of the first things to note is that wellbeing isn’t about events, such as an end of term staff event or offering yoga classes.   These can help improve peoples wellbeing but wellbeing is more complex than a catalogue of events on offer.  

Stress and Challenge

When we talk about stress we often jump to a negative conclusion, that stress isnt good.   The reality is that stress, at least in my interpretation, can be a good thing as well as a bad thing.     If it relates to an activity which is worthwhile, has some level of difficulty and includes some autonomy of decision making then this will likely cause stress, however it will be positive stress;  it will represent a challenge.    If, however it is not viewed as worthwhile, is busy work, includes monotony rather than autonomy and is too difficult to be achievable given available resources, then this will likely result in negative stress.

So, the question for leaders here is, do we ensure that there is meaning in what we ask our teams to do, do we provide the relevant autonomy, but also support and are we realistic and clear in our expectations of others?

Looking after yourself / Personal wellbeing

We also need to acknowledge that wellbeing for each of us is also a personal responsibility.   Yes, our school has to provide an environment that supports and encourages our wellbeing, however equally we as individuals need to also support our own wellbeing.    For each of us the methods of doing this is likely to be different.   For me it is about reading, particularly reading non-fiction, and about physical exercise in the form of jogging (or maybe lumbering would be more appropriate in my case) and also about contributing back to the Edu world through blogs, etc.  Some people may like gardening or cooking, two things I am pretty hopeless at.   For others it might be long family walks.   We each need to seek to find what works for us as individuals, as families, as friends, etc.

Balance

I often find myself coming back to the importance of balance.   Too much of anything is bad for you and equally too little is often just as bad.   Whether it is exercise, comfort foods, relaxation time, challenge and positive stress, family time, personal reflection time, or a multitude of other things, too little can have a negative impact as can too much.  Its about finding the balance that works for you.

We also need to wrestle with the challenges of time;   Often have I heard and even said that “I don’t have enough time.”   Sadly this is a pointless cry as we will never have any more time than that which we have now (unless we master time travel of course 😉 ).    There are 24hrs in the day and 7 days in the week.   This isnt going to change.   As such we need to accept that more time for a given task comes at the expense of less time for something else.   And with this in mind we need to remain balanced;   we cant simply keep providing more time to our work tasks as this will mean less time for our own personal growth and reflection, for family time, etc.   And it is worth noting that in work, we often, as we seek to improve and develop, tend towards adding things, adding tasks, adding processes, adding checks and balances, and adding complexity, all which therefore require more time.   Seldom do we seek to take things away;    Adding, having more, doing more seems logically positive however in reality this can only be guaranteed where resources are limitless.   In the real world where time is limited, everything we add which takes additional time and effort, takes away time and effort from something else.

Conclusion

On reflection, and a key thought, is that wellbeing isnt a thing or an endpoint.   Wellbeing is a road or a process.    It is ongoing and at times things your wellbeing will be challenged when all isnt going well and at other times your wellbeing will be good and all will be progressing as it should.    The key is to find what works for you, to be concious of your wellbeing and to be concious of your actions and plans in relation to wellbeing.   

So for a leader its about yourself as an individual but also about your team as a group;   How can you support wellbeing for yourself but also for those you lead.    As a team member its about yourself as an individual and also about your colleagues and how you can support one another.    Overlayed on this, for those with families, there is the wellbeing of you spouse, your kids and your other family members.  

Wellbeing isnt simple and I don’t think anyone has the answer.    For me it links to organisational culture and climate, which are equally complex and slow to change. If anything, what matters most is that we are at least speaking about and it considering it more than we did in the past, and that’s a good start.

The culture of education

It is possible to examine and make judgments on the culture and climate of an organisation.   We can look at a macro view, looking at all companies within a particular employment sector or looking at similar organisations across a specified geographical area.   Equally we can take a micro view observing the specific culture and climate within departments or other sub-divisions within a particular organisation.

I have found myself repeatedly mentioning the importance of schools in general having an open culture and a positive climate.   My intention with such comments was specifically to address culture and climate at the organisational level, looking at each individual school as the whole unit however I have had cause to reflect on this and consider a more macro viewpoint.

What would the culture and climate of “schools” in general be?

What I mean by this, is that if we were to consider all the schools and all educational staff, including leaders, teachers and support staff, as the scope of analysis and as a single unit of study what would the culture and climate be.

The first issue I have with the above is the question is the evidence which is used in such a judgement.   Thinking about education and schools in general and the things which come to mind as possible evidence the various comments on social media including twitter, facebook and LinkedIn are first to stir in my conscious thoughts.    The television and printed news would also serve as evidence which is quick to present itself.     The issue I instantly have with this is that these are things which come easily to mind as they are most easily accessible in my memory, not that they are most representative of the truth, however my perception as directed by my memories is my truth.

As such my truth with regards how I perceive the culture and climate of schools in general could be shaped by the below:

Having read the above, how do you yourself feel about schools?

I don’t feel quite as negative as I possibly should based on the examples above and the many similar posts, articles and stories however this is due to being conscious of the fact that these items only way readily on my mind not due to be fact but due to just being readily available.    That they are readily available is partly related to the media and the need for a good story along with the tendency to report the extremes as opposed to the everyday, the more mundane and also the more representative.   This in turn leads to retweets and responses to articles which emphasise these reported extremes, in turn reinforcing stories like those mentioned above.

Could it be that we are in a cycle of negativity?

I hasten to add that I am not suggesting with the above question that all is perfect in the world of education and that we should stop moaning and get on with it, far from this.    Education the world over has many issues, with each individual country and education system with its own demons to wrestle.   Some countries are making better progress than others, and some other countries are suffering a quicker or lesser decline than their neighbours.   We need to address the issues in hand and this requires making them known and discussing them in a hope to find solutions.

But wouldn’t it be nice if in all of this teachers had at least a few thoughts which came easily to mind which were positive about the work we do.     Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a positive cycle of news relating to successes, ideas, etc.

As the 2015/16 year draws to a close wouldn’t it be nice to show the world that there is a culture of working to make things better, of positivity, of sharing, of openness………..hold on, would it be nice to show the world the face we show our students every day we are with them!

P.s. Following writing this I observed #teacher5aday and calls for tweachers to tweet thanks to other educators who have inspired them.

This and the resulting stream of thank you tweets flying around twitter is exactly the positivity that I was referring to above, and the kind of example which I would like to see come easily to mind among teachers and also the general public.   This is the culture and climate we want to seek to encourage.