Should mental health be on the curriculum?
Today I came across a post arguing that we should teach mental health on the curriculum, that is was essential, that the curriculum is already full but that this topic is so important it needs to be added in as well. You can read it here: https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/im-convinced-mental-health-must-be-curriculum-and-teachers-need
It sounds good doesn't it? Supporting young people is good, teaching them is good, breaking the taboo of mental illness is good.
Well yes. I am all for talking about mental health and supporting the every growing population of students with mental illness. I was one of those students, I suffered from depression throughout my GCSEs and A levels and there was so little support out there for me that life went severely wrong for a few years. I also teach Psychology; I spend a large proportion of the year talking about mental illness and the treatments for it, showing videos of sufferers, teaching empathy, understanding and trying to break the taboo and stereotypes.
But here's the thing; I am one of those teachers now: I am a teacher with mental health problems. No, I am not currently being treated for depression, but that does not mean it has gone away, that does not mean I am in a place, mentally, to be able to support a student suffering from mental illness, that I am, in any way, a good person to teach methods for improving mental health and staving off stress and mental illness. In fact, I am a bad person for this, I am really not the person you want teaching this. These things trigger me; I know this is not the case for everyone, but it's the case for me. I have a carefully planned scheme of work: psychopathology comes at a time of year that I know I will be on an up (I have attributes of SAD as well), I tell my friends and partner when I get there, so they know how to support me, I put it in weeks away from mocks and heavy marking.
Now imagine it was an enforced topic, imagine the planning was out of my hands, imagine that it came just before mocks, or exams (a sensible time to put it for the students), what happens now? What happens is my life falls apart around me, what happens is I end up unable to leave my bed, the depression back in full swing.
Now yes, this is not generalisable, yes this is just me, and yes, I am aware I could talk to my line manager. But this is missing the big picture. I am not trained to support mental health; I am not a counsellor; I am not a psychiatrist. I am a teacher. My job is to teach, my job is to be there for students in the best way I can be, and in the same way as I wouldn't want an air stewardess flying the plane, I wouldn't want to assume that I can, in any way, teach mental health and help students.
A more preferable solution? Put the money into mental health services, pay for more crisis teams, for more support nurses, for nurses. Increase the links between schools and these services, invite them into assemblies, have drop in clinics, promote links between staff and students and the services that have the medical training on the topic. Don't break my mental health by asking me to support that of others.
It sounds good doesn't it? Supporting young people is good, teaching them is good, breaking the taboo of mental illness is good.
Well yes. I am all for talking about mental health and supporting the every growing population of students with mental illness. I was one of those students, I suffered from depression throughout my GCSEs and A levels and there was so little support out there for me that life went severely wrong for a few years. I also teach Psychology; I spend a large proportion of the year talking about mental illness and the treatments for it, showing videos of sufferers, teaching empathy, understanding and trying to break the taboo and stereotypes.
But here's the thing; I am one of those teachers now: I am a teacher with mental health problems. No, I am not currently being treated for depression, but that does not mean it has gone away, that does not mean I am in a place, mentally, to be able to support a student suffering from mental illness, that I am, in any way, a good person to teach methods for improving mental health and staving off stress and mental illness. In fact, I am a bad person for this, I am really not the person you want teaching this. These things trigger me; I know this is not the case for everyone, but it's the case for me. I have a carefully planned scheme of work: psychopathology comes at a time of year that I know I will be on an up (I have attributes of SAD as well), I tell my friends and partner when I get there, so they know how to support me, I put it in weeks away from mocks and heavy marking.
Now imagine it was an enforced topic, imagine the planning was out of my hands, imagine that it came just before mocks, or exams (a sensible time to put it for the students), what happens now? What happens is my life falls apart around me, what happens is I end up unable to leave my bed, the depression back in full swing.
Now yes, this is not generalisable, yes this is just me, and yes, I am aware I could talk to my line manager. But this is missing the big picture. I am not trained to support mental health; I am not a counsellor; I am not a psychiatrist. I am a teacher. My job is to teach, my job is to be there for students in the best way I can be, and in the same way as I wouldn't want an air stewardess flying the plane, I wouldn't want to assume that I can, in any way, teach mental health and help students.
A more preferable solution? Put the money into mental health services, pay for more crisis teams, for more support nurses, for nurses. Increase the links between schools and these services, invite them into assemblies, have drop in clinics, promote links between staff and students and the services that have the medical training on the topic. Don't break my mental health by asking me to support that of others.
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