By Matthew Savage, Educational consultant
This post was first published in Wellbeing in International Schools magazine and School Management Plus
'Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination.'
—Andrew Lang, 1844-1912, Scottish poet, novellist, critic and anthropologist)
As someone who speaks and writes about assessment data on a daily basis, my mission is to detoxify and disarm it, reclaiming it from the data drunkards who have used it in the dark or for ill.
I wrote a blog piece recently in which I summoned the spirit of Leone to reflect upon 'the good, the bad and the ugly' of student-level data, and, whilst it is true that many a teacher is still shy, scared or cynical about data, it is not hard to see why.
Even in the enlightened world of international education, where there is more space for progressive practice, necessary disruption and shifted paradigms, there is still insufficient illumination.
We are whipping up the winds of performativity that already buffet and batter our students every day.
Whether we are indulging our students’ and parents’ inherited appetite for graded work, chasing arbitrary attainment thresholds set by the pedagogic dilettantes of government, or battling our competitors with the blunt and primitive sword of examination performance, we are whipping up the winds of performativity that already buffet and batter our students every day.
If you're reading this, the chances are that you—like the editor of Wellbeing in International Schools Magazine Sadie Hollins and me—want to put #wellbeingfirst; but, if we want to do so, we need to harness the power of assessment data to illuminate our path.
In A Scandal in Bohemia, Conan Doyle’s maverick detective declares, 'I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.'
Whilst our professional judgment, the relationships we forge and conversations we enjoy with our students, are crucial to our understanding of them, it is the height of arrogance or naïveté or both for us to believe that, as a result, we 'know' who they are.
Children and young people, like adults, wear manifold masks, thickly and well, to hide their struggles and difficulties, and we need to go so much further, and deeper, to see beneath this conscious or unconscious veneer; we need data.
Thankfully, there are so many ways in which we can measure student well-being, and, in so doing, protect, enhance and repair it, and help our students to do so too.
However, even for the best-intentioned international educator, it can seem difficult to know where to start.
It is with this in mind that I have written this article, as a means to suggest a data-led, data-fed approach to well-being, and illuminate your pursuit of the #wellbeingfirst school.
There are some fantastic people working in this field, each of whom will bring just as much to the table here as I aim to do, and so this article is neither definitive nor exhaustive.
That said, I hope it will give you food for thought and an appetite for action, as you seek to measure what really matters.
Firstly, and as an extension to what we have always done intuitively as educators, we have observational data. This includes what I call 'school gate' observation, the opinions we form even through an authentic but informal greeting as a student enters school or moves around the campus during the day.
Of course, this only becomes data when we record it, but there are already apps, such as tootoot, through which we can record and track such observations.
Many schools also choose to build observational data around a set of values or attributes, and, indeed, I was privileged to co-found a student rewards programme, Polio Points, back in 2012, which gamified the IB Learner Profile by converting observable and observed attributes to funded polio vaccines for children around the world.
And those of you who have experienced the positive impact of the Leuven Scales of Well-being and Involvement, not just within their original early years setting but when applied throughout the school, will know how powerful can be this observational data in identifying and supporting student wellbeing.
The full article: https://www.cois.org/about-cis/perspectives-blog/blog-post/~board/perspectives-blog/post/in-focus-how-to-use-data-to-solve-the-student-wellbeing-puzzle
A Federal Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
HHS agencies offer resources to help you eat smart, exercise regularly, and get routine health screenings and vaccinations.
MedlinePlus is the National Institutes of Health's Web site for consumers. MedlinePlus offers reliable, up-to-date health information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues.
Directory of health information resources as well as coverage of health topics.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.
Source: https://ibo.org/globalassets/new-structure/research/pdfs/supporting-student-wellbeing-in-a-digital-learning-environment-policy-paper-en.pdf
By Leo Thompson, MA, MEd, CIS School Support and Evaluation Officer
What does well-being in education really mean? How can we give it a mandate and support it in our school communities?
The purpose of this post, the first in a series, is to move the well-being conversation forward and share some practical resources and stimuli. Let’s starts at cloud level by looking at concepts and theory. Later, we’ll switch to a more grounded approach by sharing practical strategies shared by surveyed and interviewed students and staff across diverse school contexts. If there was any doubt about the importance of valuing well-being in education before the arrival of Covid-19, there isn’t now!
A golden thread and a glittering gem
Well-being, wellness, happiness, prosperity, balance, psychological resilience, and mental health are an interconnected cluster of words and ideas that are under closer scrutiny than ever. They are deservedly gathering greater traction in our educational communities. The ideas need to weave through education like a golden thread because well-being is the bedrock of learning. When we reflect on life, is striving for intellectual brilliance and becoming highly qualified worth the risk of our mental health, happiness, and an overall feeling of being well?
For these reasons, well-being is purposefully one of the four drivers in our CIS International Accreditation framework and forms a cornerstone of our work with schools. Its inclusion in our standards not only gives well-being a mandate. It also provides schools with a useful template to move forward with this vital work.
But to truly make well-being the bedrock of our schools, we need to understand its many dimensions.
One can begin by trying to define it. It was made clear to me by Peter Williams, Superintendent at Kuwait American School, that well-being is a diamond, a glittering gem, with many facets.
As soon as my colleague and I entered his school, Peter greeted us with a small diamond-shaped crystal gift. It was a symbol and reminder of an important message: every person and unique identity in our community is precious and valued, and we should take care to look after them all. That impression stuck!
Building on Peter’s message, if we gather together a range of perspectives and research on well-being, it appears to include ideas as diverse as comfort and safety, nourishment, connection to nature and people, sense of purpose, and an acceptance of self and others. And of course, there’s your own ideas and values. People experience well-being differently and might also define it differently.
As individuals, we each enter well-being/being-well from our own conceptual inclination, culture, and perspectives.
'Unless we address well-being nothing else matters.'
This was a provocation I heard from Jane Larsson, CIS Executive Director, at a January 2020 CIS global team meeting. She was quoting a prophetic statement that emerged in 2019 during the CIS Summit of University and School Leaders. This was the last time I saw my colleagues pre-Covid without a screen between us.
So why might this statement be true? What are the facets of this priceless glittering gem?
Just as it has featured in recent CIS Perspective blog posts—Redefining well-being and leadership by presence during the pandemic and This child is your number one priority—well-being is a trending concept valued within international education and in societies globally.
To read the whole article: https://www.cois.org/about-cis/perspectives-blog/blog-post/~board/perspectives-blog/post/unpacking-well-being-part-one-the-glittering-gem
The tool Google Trends demonstrates its popularity by showing how well-being has grown as a search term in their worldwide ‘Jobs & Education’ category searches over the last five years.
Global educators want to know more and do more concerning well-being.
Fig 1: Chart showing a 5-year span of searches of well-being in the ‘jobs and education’ category on Google using Google Trends.
Though the trend graph above is no more than a superficial indicator, the fact that it resembles an accelerating cardiograph suggests that well-being has a palpable pulse in education.
Ironically, the dramatic dips in the chart (Fig. 1) may represent well-being in action as these coincide with holidays in cultures that celebrate Easter, Christmas, and New Year. Could the hits be lower because people are more focused on enjoying a good life than researching it in these festive periods?
Source: https://www.cois.org/about-cis/perspectives-blog/blog-post/~board/perspectives-blog/post/unpacking-well-being-part-one-the-glittering-gem
Sponsored by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention
An annual report on trends in health statistics.
Main Takeaways
1: Effective use of digital learning technology should be driven by learning, teaching and wellbeing goals rather than a specific technology.
2: To benefit from digital learning, students need the right set of skills and support systems.
3: A wellbeing infrastructure should be designed in any digital learning environment to boost learning outcomes and wellbeing.
4: Teachers need appropriate training and support in monitoring and assessing student wellbeing in a digital environment.
5: It is important to critically assess the impact on wellbeing of various tools and technologies before implementing them.
6: Evidence needs to be used to monitor, assess and improve students’ wellbeing in digital learning environments, as a major opportunity to engage schools and teachers in innovation and experimentations.
Source: https://ibo.org/globalassets/new-structure/research/pdfs/supporting-student-wellbeing-in-a-digital-learning-environment-policy-paper-en.pdf