Dan Haesler is the
2010 recipient of the NSW Premier's Anika Foundation Teachers
Scholarship to address and raise awareness of youth depression. He
teaches at Emanuel School, Sydney.
Below is an excerpt from an opinion piece that Dan wrote
for the Sydney Morning
Herald today.
"Mental illness has increased in successive
generations of Australian youth. About a quarter of teenagers
suffer significant psychological distress at one time and more than
7000 young people a year are admitted to hospital after
self-harming. Seven thousand.
Schoolchildren spend more hours a week, face
to face, with their teachers than with any other adult. The World
Health Organisation tells us that our current crop of year 7 boys
and girls will face a greater threat from depression than from any
other disease by the time they reach 30 ....
... Teachers want to know their role in
helping to address this and whether a back-to-basics curriculum
meets the needs of today's youth? I believe we need a national
curriculum that addresses the demands of this century, not the
last. The draft curriculum has been widely criticised as being
overcrowded and old-fashioned."
This is a very insightful piece and aligns perfectly with
Inspire's vision for our work in the education sector. Inspire's
vision is to transform education so that learning the skills to
be resilient will be as important to all players in the education
sector as learning the skills of the 3Rs (reading, writing and
arithmetic). Resilience needs to be seen as the 4th R in
education. This is a lofty goal and would put Australia
ahead of the game in terms of educating the whole-child by
providing a truly comprehensive curriculum.
Inspire, through the Reach Out Teachers Network, has been working to
advocate for essential policy changes in the area of teacher
training and mandatory curriculum. In May 2010, Inspire
responded to the National Professional Standards of Teaching
consultation advocating for mandatory training requirements for
all teachers in addressing youth mental health issues in
schools.
In May it was also announced that Health and Physical Education
would be prioritised in Phase 3 of the Australian Curriculum
development process. This was great news and now Inspire is working
with other key stakeholders to ensure essential learning in
relation to mental health, help seeking, problem solving and
resilience is included in the Health and PE curriculum.
But, we can't do this alone ...
- If you are passionate about the wellbeing of your students
....
- If you want to see real change in the curriculum being offered
to students ...
- If you want to be THAT teacher that can make a real difference
in your students life ...
... THEN join the conversation
now!
The more people we have supporting our vision for change ... the
greater chance we have of transforming education for the students
of today and tomorrow!