In response to Pride in Madness: We Need to Learn to Cope which references this CBC article.
As a teacher who invests far too much in her students, I can confirm that nothing in my basic training prepared me for the kinds of mental health issues I’ve faced. Even though I would love to know more, many teachers don’t, and not for lack of caring. The requirements and responsibilities of educators to deliver content and complete paperwork leaves little to no room for extras if we’re to find a work-life balance. As someone who does care greatly about my students, I find two major deficits in emotional awareness and knowledge: 1) parents who intervene in every tiny “crisis” and insist on solving it for their children, and 2) an education system that removes the need to cope. Parents who don’t let their kids deal with adversity when they’re young -- and it’s relatively minor -- are really stunting important emotional growth. The world does not throw open its arms to us; we have to fight for most opportunities and to prove ourselves. Parents who intervene in everything from a squabble over a toy to a bad mark on a test aren’t teaching their children how to cope. Instead, we’re raising children who feel like a failure because they don’t know how to do anything on their own. When they’re faced with the kind of problem that they aren’t comfortable telling their parents about (or maybe the parents are the cause), many turn to unhealthy behaviours because they don’t know what else to do. In the same way you can’t just tell a kid “Don’t do drugs,” and expect them to know how to extract themselves when presented with the option, these are skills which must be explicitly taught. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with every issue my daughter faces, but I hope to have her shoulder some responsibility in solving or dealing with whatever she faces. Education has changed dramatically since I was a student. I remember other students failing grades, or courses. I remember getting a bad mark on a test and knowing that it was going to affect my entire year. Now, as a teacher, I have to give students chance after chance to get it right, and even if they don’t, I may still be asked (by the parent/my administrator) to give the student a passing grade. I hear high school students complain endlessly about how they were pushed through lower grades and when some form of accountability was required in higher grades, they buckled under the pressure. Second chances are great, but there must be a bottom line, too. Schools should teach fundamentals, and basic skills to cope with the working world. Sometimes the lesson will be how to cope with disappointment, or how to keep working despite difficult circumstances. Compassion should be modeled, but consequences should exist. The lessons must be real. Saying, “When you graduate, you won’t get this second chance,” isn’t going to internalize the lesson. School must be the safe place to fail. Both of these factors must get back in line so children learn how to cope. Our long-term expectations haven’t changed, so our short-term strategies have to teach them that they are wonderful people, but they need to learn how to cope. One last note: I really hate the attitude that “they’re kids, it’s not a big deal.” These people have forgotten how real things felt when they were younger. Sure, I can look back now and feel embarrassed by how infatuated I was with a classmate, and want to erase the memory of the poems I wrote (and then burned), but it was all-encompassing at that moment in time. Maybe cutting young people some slack and letting them feel and experience those emotions, instead of holding them up as objects of ridicule and shame will allow them to authentically process that emotional stress so it doesn’t become something dangerous.
Cross-posted from tumblr.com/thinksin3rdprsn