There is something positive to be learnt from each moment of each day during the pandemic if we are only open to it.
For example, like many other news sources, Nature reported earlier this year that millions of people are struggling with depression, saying the devastation of the pandemic – millions of deaths, economic strife and unprecedented curbs on social interaction – has already had a marked effect on people’s mental health. Researchers worldwide are investigating the causes and impacts of this stress, and some fear that the deterioration in mental health could linger long after the pandemic has subsided.
Reports are also proliferating about how many more students, teachers and other citizens all over the world are turning to suicide to end their despair as the coronavirus drags on (one of them is an important study entitled ‘The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide and self-harm among patients presenting to the emergency department of a teaching hospital in Nepal’).
The sheer enormity of the emerging data is a positive thing, says epidemiologist Kathleen Merikangas at the United States National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She says, ‘We [now] have a real opportunity, a natural experiment, [to examine] how policies in different countries impact people’s mental health.’ In another study, entitled ‘The Psychological State of Teachers During the COVID-19 Crisis: The Challenge of Returning to Face-to-Face Teaching’, and dealing with the issue in Spain, the authors ‘argue for the need to safeguard the mental health of teachers in order to improve both the quality of teaching and the mental health of students.’
Trevor Harbottle shares these opinions. In his story he says, ‘We no longer view staff members with a specialised purpose, such as the school nurse and school chaplain, as ‘non-essential’ niche staff members, but as central pillars in our to extend a culture of care and wellbeing across the campus.’
I’m personally thrilled that we are able to bring you a bumper edition of the magazine and I would like to challenge you to find a useful tip in each story, something that could make life easier for someone at your school. I’ve learnt that at one ISASA member school a specialist has been called in to train teachers to sit properly behind their screens. The result? Less back and neck pain, and less overall distress.
I’m pretty confident about the challenge I’ve just put out, because there’s such diversity in this magazine edition.
We feature schools from all over the country and beyond our borders; schools with a variety of resources, and schools that are constantly testing new ways to enrich teaching and learning for everyone involved. I’ve personally booked a visit to Yellowwoods Preparatory School in the Eastern Cape, where horses are now part of the teaching staff. See you soon, Julie!