Written by As I begin to think about what innovative teaching and learning our school is doing, what I am doing in my class and what I want to write for cohort, I get overwhelmed by all the different choices. So many different things to talk about: classroom spaces, technology, innovative teaching practices. However, when I reflected on what I have been most passionate about over the past year, it has been one of the most basic things: sleeping, eating, moving and thinking clearly. Why has this been a focus? Largely due to one of our school’s new strategic plans called the Thrive Initiative. This is an intentional plan to implement a well-rounded and comprehensive physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing plan here at Lakefield College.
There are a few reasons why I wanted to talk about this. The main reason is because students who do no have a good grasp on sleeping, eating moving and thinking clearly will have a tough time learning and thriving in the classroom. Thus the analogy of the Cart before the horse. If we really want our students to learn well, we need them to be in good physical and mental wellbeing before they can really take advantage of what we offer as educators. Often times, these are not a focus of a school, yet we expect optimal learning to take place despite this. Secondly, I have done some work on the school’s Thrive Committee to implement initiatives the both the students and faculty in order to help improve wellness. One of the other major reason’s that I am invested in this is because I have started up a new course at the school classed Personal Fitness, Health and Wellness. This has been a great new program for the students and this subject and way of life is a passion of mine.
One of the main initiatives of the school on this project has been to enlist the help of a Wellness consultant named Greg Wells http://drgregwells.com/ . Initially, I was a bit skeptical of how an outsider can help our school improve it’s ‘wellness’. However, after working with Greg for over a year now, he has been transformative to the culture of wellness at our school. He has inspired staff and students to make “1 percent gains” in their wellness. This has spawned dialogue, programs, funding and curricular changes all geared around wellness. I encourage any school that is serious about learning to invest some effort into the wellbeing of not only the students, but the faculty as well.
I encourage any school that is serious about learning to invest some effort into the wellbeing into their everyday life. This will help students and faculty reach their potential in the classroom and beyond. Often times schools leave wellness behind in the shadows of innovation and technology, and this in my mind is buying the cart before the horse. Once we can improve our student wellness, they will then be in a position to innovate, create and thrive in our classroom.
Here is a link to Greg Well’s blog. http://drgregwells.com/be-better/
Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions about our Thrive initiative.
Great post Adam! Sometimes all of us, students and teachers alike, get caught up in the busy, and forget to make wellness a priority. I also appreciate the link to Dr. Greg Well’s blog-I like his post on “single-tasking.”
Hi Adam,
Great post! I am a big fan of sleep, and often mention it as one of the best study techniques for my students (along with: eat a good breakfast!) I think your focus on student wellness is commendable and I look forward to seeing what challenges you set for yourself within the Thrive initiative at LCS this year.
@aross Wow ! What an incredible opportunity. Dr Wells is an incredible resource and to have him as a partner in the development of your “thrive” initiative will no doubt help accelerate it.
Overwhelmed by choice of how to focus your Cohort 21 time? Don’t worry. Saturday will help you focus your energy and narrow down where you want to spend your action plan time.
What a great first post! You’re in good company – we’ve had a lot of people look at wellness through C21 @vhcivan, @aharding & @dneville to name just a few! It’s been great seeing the evolution of our Thrive program and it’s a great area of focus. You wear many hats so deciding what to blog about can be challenging but you also have a diverse set of experiences to draw from and I would argue that you can empathize well with students because you see them in so many different aspects of school life.
Really looking forward to the ride to Toronto this weekend as we hash out all of these ideas and get ready to dive more deeply into action plans.
Adam , Tim sent this along to me. Could I use an excerpt for a slide for the
Grove Society presentation at their Xmas meeting?
Hi Adam,
The Thirve Initiative sounds like an amazing addition to the program at LCS! I applaud the focus on mindset and wellness for students as this will help them learn the mind-body connection as central to growing into an effective (and life-long) learner. At Trafalgar, we have chosen to practice mindfulness in our middle school program, with regularity as part of their overall timetable so that our students learn about the practice as well as the research behind these elements as central to their overall learning.
Based on your reflection, how do you think the Personal Fitness, Health & Wellness Course is going so far? What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered in the first term? Is this topic something you are thinking of exploring in your action plan? If so, please post your initial question or idea so we can help you to define it further.
Thanks for sharing your post! I think you are on to a meaningful and purposeful element of what makes learning a ‘skill’ that is developed over time. I look forward to hearing more.
~ Christina
Christina,
Thank you for your comment. In regards to your question on the Personal Fitness class, and how it is going, I can say from my perspective that it has been amazing. Initially, I thought that it might only attract the “sporty” types which I hoped wasn’t the case. In fact, it has attracted a wide range of students, from those who have not done much of anything with regard to personal fitness, and those that have a strong background in it. The best part is that each student is getting a lot out of the course, whether that is basic knowledge to students with little background or helping those varsity athletes further enhance their knowledge and abilities.
Some challenges in the course are space, as our enrollment in the course has gotten high (yay!) and our fitness center barely holds us all. However, these are good problems to have. I am not going to use this topic as part of my action plan specifically, but I hope to have some teachers visit my fitness class as part of my teacher to teacher observation action plan.
Hey @aross I just finished reading your blog entry and I’m curious to learn more about how the face-2-face session shortly after you posted helped to develop your action plan around your goals to promote wellness in your new class?
At UCC we are currently working on a new strategic direction and I am pretty sure that wellbeing is going to be an important pillar and focus of our school moving forward. I will certainly encourage the influencers at my school (many of which you know) to read your post and consider Dr. Wells in their future planning.
Thanks for your post, looking forward to reading your next one!
I think that connecting UCC with Dr. Wells would be a good fit. He is a Crescent grad and has a good understanding of the independent school landscape. He not only emphasizes physical fitness, but a well balanced approach to fitness in general. I know that a lot of what we are learning this year could be applied to the challenges at UCC!