MrBainbridge

Apart from plain common sense, much has been said and written about the power of positive thinking – Dale Carniegie, Norman Peale, even Forest Gump to name a few.

There is a strong metaphysical school that links positive thinking with the ability to self heal – Louise Hay writes strongly about this link. Alternative cancer treatments suggest visualisation and various positive karmas to cure cancer.

Many influential thinkers and leaders of the 20th century are living testimony to the power of positive thinking to overcome adversary eg: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.

Positive thinking is a lifestyle choice, it is a personal philosophy choice, it is both a physically and mentally healthy choice, it becomes habitual and it promotes a far more fulfilling, rewarding and enjoyable life and career as well as guaranteeing more meaningful and happy relationships.

Sports psychology, business mentors and various forms of counselling all promote the value of positive thinking – identifying, accentuation, duplication and enhancing the positive things in people’s lives. It is focusing and dwelling on the good points of self-image and self-esteem, the good things happening in your life and looking for the good in others.

It is about looking for and maximising the positive qualities and features in the people we mix or work with. It is about looking at the positive qualities and values of our partner rather then dwelling on the negative. It is about what we can do rather then what we can’t. It is about our friend’s good points rather then their failings and as teachers, what is good and positive about our children and our school rather than the opposite. It is sometimes easier to see the failings and faults in people and systems by focusing on the narrow and the specific rather then looking at a wider picture.

Developing a habit of positive thinking involves the concept of ‘will’. ‘Will’ is the capacity to choose among alternative choices particularly when; definite ideas and principals of conduct govern the action. Willed behaviour is deliberately aimed rather then stemming from instinct, impulse, or reflex. ‘Will’ dominates every other aspect of an individual’s personality, knowledge, feelings and direction in life.

Philosophers see ‘will’ in different lights but the great pragmatic philosopher John Dewy sees ‘will’ not as an innate faculty but as a product of experience evolving gradually as the mind and personality of an individual develop in social interaction.

People with weak wills, will have difficulty embracing the concept of positive thinking and its consequential effects on the pursuit of happiness. Serial killers are notable for being loners with low self-esteem, poor social interaction skills and an incapacity to resist impulses or break habits.

Modern psychologists see the act of ‘willing’ as being manifested by:
a) Focusing on relatively distance goals and relatively abstract standards and principles of conduct – a global, generalist view.
b) Weighing up options and making careful calculations rather then quick, judgemental decisions.
c) Perseverance against obstacles and frustration’s in pursuit of goals and values.

Common deficiencies that prevent the development of strong will are absence of goals and standards (aimlessness), vacillating attention, incapacity to resist impulses, inability to forward plan, stick to a decision or decide among alternatives.

My premise is that positive thinking is a deliberate learned behaviour – it may be harder for some people then for others depending on the development of their personalities which is governed by their experiences. People who have suffered hardship, trauma, loss or accident are more likely to recognise and practice the concept of positive thinking.

The converse is a focus on the negative – what’s wrong with your life, your children, your partner, your friends, your job, your work place. Louise Hay argues that with extreme pre-occupation, comes a compulsion to blame – always someone else.

Negativity leads to the development of a pessimistic outlook on life, work and people. Negativity often manifests itself in complaining ceaselessly, sulking, moping, being bored, easily distracted, being re-active rather then pro-active and responding emotively rather then rationally. Whining becomes an art form.

There is an interesting contrast between the Warriors Rugby League team, (how do your know the Warriors have arrived in Sydney? The whine continues after the jet engines have been turned off), and the ‘Black Caps’ Cricket team. For the Warriors it is always the fault of the referee, the linesman, the video referee, the judiciary, the travelling, the coach, the contracts etc. For the World Cup Cricket team, there has been a quiet acceptance of their weaknesses and a positive belief in their strengths and abilities. When they lost, they didn’t blame the weather, the umpires or their mothers! They accepted they hadn’t played well and determined a will to do better and articulated a positive belief in their abilities and the outcome.

My conclusion is to strongly suggest that a focus on the positive rather then the negative makes you a happier, healthier person. It enhances your outlook and your relationships. It can become a learned behaviour but requires a focused will to change. A simple question to pose is whether you prefer to be in the company of positive, outward going people or negative, inhibited people. Try and look at the positive in children, colleagues, friends, and systems and focus and accentuate on the positive while trying to minimise or overlook the negative. At the very least, look at the negatives in the wider context of the whole scenario, the wider picture and the full story. Enjoy life to the full for it is a very finite condition and look at any school problems in the wider context of life. You will find they pail into insignificance.

Some Related Points

1. Positive thinking is a deliberate lifestyle choice.

2. Take a deep breath, count to ten and respond in a rational not an emotive way.

3. Don’t let trivial, minor things cause concern – look at the wider picture, the full context.

4. Assign ownership to stress and sources of stress.

5. Accept yourself. Look for the positive in yourself – list your positive points. Enhance these; work on your weaker points.

6. Accept others. Look for things to like about them rather than dislike.

7. Be honest with yourself, your maker, and with others.

The Columbine High School massacre has focused attention on identification and provision for children at risk.

Realistic observers can not help but observe that our youth culture has major problems. Many causes are blamed – television violence, the breakdown of the family, societal changes etc, and many reports, indeed gabfests, commissioned. Many an academic and professional career will be launched on the tragedy of Columbine.

An encouraging international trend is a recognition of the importance of early identification programmes for child mental health. The evidence in favour of early intervention is almost universal – the question is what form.

A Christchurch longitudinal study at the Christchurch School of Medicine (David Fergusson) has gathered data on 1275 children born in a four month period in 1977 and tracked the group since then. The study is acclaimed worldwide and is used to strongly advocate for early intervention. Says Fergusson “by age 7 or 8 you have enough information to make a prognosis.” Factors impacting on child mental health included social and economic disadvantage, impaired parenting, especially poor monitoring of children (the parents of the Columbine killers had absolutely no idea of their children’s demeanour or behaviour), inconsistent discipline, abuse, high levels of family conflict, high levels of mental disorder in parents, poor peer relationships and other individual factors. However, the study cautions against basing early intervention programmes based on any one factor. “Where the truth lies is not in the isolation of any one risk factor, but in the accumulation and patterning of risk factors.” The Christchurch study concluded that up to 15% of adolescents have mental health problems.

Patrick McGorry – Professor of Psychiatry at Melbourne University talks of a rising tide of mental disorders showing up in increased violence and youth suicide (New Zealand – highest in the world, Australia 4th). He sees the causes as being sociological and sociopolitical.

The adult world now is more competitive and less forgiving.
Jobs are more fluid and less accessible.
Families are less stable.
Communities are more urbanised and less subsistant.
There is higher material needs and pressures
Puberty is earlier

Mental disorders and disruptive anti-social behaviour have high instances of overlap. Some studies show depressive illness occurs in up to 7% of youths by age 15 and 15% by age 18 and depression can now be identified as the major predictor of youth suicide.

Some significant (but worrying) implications come from early intervention research. Professor Mark Fraser (University of North Carolina) observes a child who is aggressive at age 5 years, was equally or more likely to be aggressive at age 10 years and that poor school achievement at age 10 is a predictor of delinquency at later ages. He believes the combination of aggression and rejection by popular peers as the most “potent combination” (studies of serial killers would confirm this opinion).

Anne Williams – Adelaide Women & Children’s Hospital, also believes many warning signs appear in early childhood – “What you can measure at age one you can measure at age five.” Babies with insecure bonding often have relationship difficulties and peer problems later in life. (An interesting sideline to her research is that while maternal postnatal depression can cause behaviour and learning problems for boys, girls are immune. She speculates that girls many internalise feelings which later emerge as adolescent eating disorders and depression which effects more girls then boys).

A University of Queensland researcher, Margaret McFarland, studied detection of mental health problems in primary schools and found that because of the close and holistic nature of primary teaching, teachers were aware of potential at-risk children but for various reasons decide not to intervene (the process, the stress, the risk, the lack of resources).

David Fergusson agrees, “many children with problems are well recognised by their teachers, parents and peers by age 8. The problem is not so much in terms of recognition, but in a lack of response to the recognition.”

At Matipo School we articulate that we are a child centred school dedicated to children. We articulate that we advocate for children and that we cater to the whole child.

I concede that we haven’t catered to some of our children as well as we could have. We advocate strongly for our children in terms of resources, special needs, and some aspects of child protection and care. We try hard in the provision of a good quality balanced education. However, for other children we have been guilty of taking the easy option of doing nothing, of putting it in that too hard basket, for the reasons stated above – it’s too time consuming, too frustrating, there is a lack of responsive agencies, we buy a fight with parents and there is too much risk.

I would like to think that we could do better and make a more sincere commitment to our mission statement and to our children. We need to provide some compensatory intervention to children at risk of poor care, mental health disorders and varieties of emotive behaviour. We need to be aware of the warning signs:

Aggressive behaviour
Depression
Withdrawal
Poor peer relationships
Anti-social or deviant behaviour
Abuse
Family conflict/trauma
Socio-economic factors impacting on adequate care and hygiene
Effective parenting difficulties
Known parent factors – alcoholism, mental disorders

Where there is a combination of these factors or serious concern of one factor, the situation should be referred to the principal to investigate possible causes of action. Referral to Public Health Nurse and C.Y.P.S. are obvious options.

We are taking part in a pilot programme involving a social worker/counsellor internship with Unitech. The principal has access to funding and other sources for food, clothing and medical attention. I am going to establish a part time “field worker” position to work with a small group of “at risk” children (with care deprivation problems) and hopefully with their parents. The task will be to establish a rapport and trusting relationship with the children, to complete a needs analysis, to give the children reinforcement and security of their worth and to address basic caring issues. Hopefully, successful contact can be made with the parents to offer support and if necessary to put them in touch with supportive agencies.

At the same time our intern counsellor will work with cases referred on from our field worker or directly from the principal and if necessary cases will be referred on to outside agencies (see flow diagram).

The bottom line is that I intend to be more pro-active in trying to provide an early identification of children at risk and trying to do something about it. I have avoided the school being involved in child protection and social work provision but the harsh conclusion is that if we don’t do it, no one will, and we will have failed our children. Neither this school, nor society, can continue to look the other way.

Teacher Concern Parent Concern

Principal

Field Worker

Counsellor

Other Agencies*

* Other Agencies May Include: Public Health Nurse, Special Education Service, C.Y.P.F.S., Glenburn, Lawyer, Presbyterian Support.

In 1989, the Lange Labour Government introduced the revolutionary concept known as “Tomorrow’s Schools” – a world leading experiment in self management and self governance for New Zealand schools. Centralised control was gone; local Education Boards and the Department of Education were abolished. A slimmed down Ministry of Education was established and each of the country’s 2700 schools were governed by a locally elected Board of Trustees with wide ranging responsibilities for site based management and governance including staffing, maintenance and full control and discretion of the school’s bulk grant. Section 75 of the Education Act 1989 states:

“except to the extent that any enactment or the general law of New Zealand provides otherwise, a school’s board has complete discretion to control the management of the school as it thinks fit.”

Schools ran with this brave new concept from the beginning and never looked back. The shackles of centralised control had been broken and schools were free to take control of their own destinies. They appointed their own staff, maintained their own buildings and built new rooms, new amenities and undertook new initiatives. We entered a world in which education was both progressive and entrepreneurial. The self management concept was further extended in the 1990′s with the introduction of bulk funding where schools who wished could also self manage teacher salaries and determine how and what to spend this money on. A government white paper explored the possibility of making teacher’s resource centres and Advisory Services contestable ie: the money would be redirected to schools who would then buy in services from the best provider. Another change of government and intense pressure from teacher unions saw the concept of bulk funding and contestable advisory services dropped.

It’s ironic that the Labour government that introduced the then radical concept of self management and self governance a decade or so later has also been responsible for its demise. Events in the last three years have seen a resurgence of centralised control, a gross increase in compliance and compliance checking and an erosion in local control and autonomy. The empire strikes back! The strangled death of Tomorrow’s Schools by present government policy is de-motivating to principals and Boards of Trustees and flies in the face of current developments in Britain, Australia and parts of the United States – again ironic in that Australia in particular looked to our system as a model of excellence.

What are the changes? As previously mentioned, local control over teachers salaries (bulk funding) was removed and contestability of teachers centres and advisory services never saw the light of day. The previous independent Special Education Service has now become part of the Ministry of Education and renamed Group Special Education (the “Directorate” was considered for its new name). Where as schools could previously act as their own fundholders, this ability has now been considerably curtailed.

Compliance has greatly increased with most returns to the Ministry now have to be co-signed by the Chairman of the Board and in the case of one form relating to foreign fee paying students, having to be witnessed by a Justice of the Peace. Many primary schools had got into the lucrative foreign students market but the Minister changed the regulations so that foreign students under 10 years old were prevented from coming to New Zealand schools unless accompanied by their parents. This has deprived schools of significant amounts of extra funding which was used to employ extra staff, build extra facilities and buy extra resources. In addition to three yearly reviews by the Education Review Office, and annual financial audits, schools are also subject to review for roll audit and E.S.O.L. funding audit.

All schools are required to complete both 10 year and 5 year property plans. As a result of new requirements in regard to School Planning and Reporting, all schools had to review and basically re-write school charters, provide annual plans and annual goals and then report on variances to the Annual Plan goals to the Ministry. Regardless, of both Ministry and Ministerial protestations to the contrary, this requirement imposed considerable work and consultation for schools and is regarded at best as just another extension of bureaucratic accountability. Good schools have always strategically planned and set achievement targets to improve achievement. The consensus among principals is that the new plans do nothing to increase the achievement of children, just satisfy the current political whim.

More and more, New Zealand schools are having their self management eroded, replaced by a centralised, bureaucratic, “one size fits all” model. The degree of self management allowed is now determined by the level of competence of the lowest common denominator.

To restore true self management and governance and give schools the freedom and challenge to pursue excellence, new reforms are necessary. A restoration of bulk funding / direct resourcing is essential. As many support services as possible should be made contestable with their budgets distributed to schools who would then buy the service from the best possible provider. All Ministry reporting requirements should be reviewed by user groups and either simplified or removed. Different forms of school governance organisation could be considered with opportunity for successful schools to operate over several campuses (ie: take over unsuccessful schools). Compulsory school zones should be abolished and market forces allowed to determine successful / failing schools. Reporting requirements to the Ministry could also become more meaningful with schools requirement to report to the Ministry (and the community) how they had spent specifically tagged money and on achievement standards. Although contentious to the teacher unions, national standardised testing would give good benchmark levels for achievement improvement.

We need to return to site based autonomy of management and governance where local needs can be prioritised and actioned by local decision making and by encouraging competition, higher standards of achievement can be achieved. However, for those schools without the necessary skills or personnel, a Ministry supported model should also be available. Under the present political regime, “Tomorrow’s Schools” have become “Yesterday’s School’s” and we again need to look forwards, not keep stumbling backwards.