Creativity in Love

Now that I have your attention …

I hope your summer has gone well

 I’ve taken a break from blogging over the last six weeks as I search for new material, catch up on lots of administrative matters in my “guilt pile,” and take some holidays.

For those of us who live in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), a sure sign of summer coming to a close is the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE.) The CNE has always been the cacophony of rides, shows, concerts, livestock, and outrageous food with the mandatory dose of odd carneys, stadium rock pulsing through the grounds, and teenagers on the prowl. This year’s version, the 135^th annual, features a very special Appleby tie involving a colleague, Darren Chow. It is a perfect example of something we talk about all the time in education – creativity.   

One of my wife and my favourite conversation starters with couples we don’t know well is asking them how they met and, if they are married, how the proposal went.  The stories usually provide interesting (and often funny) insights into the individuals and their relationships. It is also fascinating how their perspectives of “truth” are often very different.

A wise friend and former colleague of mine always talks about how the definition of success in life having to include success in relationships – with spouses, partners, children, other family members, friends, etc. Another former colleague helped me understand the nature of creativity in its broadest sense – that while it is a hallmark of the arts, creativity is also the central driver of innovation in all human endeavours, including science, business, sports, relationships, etc. Whatever the area, it is clear that giants of those fields – Bill Gates, Wayne Gretzky, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Mohammed Ali, Steve Jobs, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, the Beatles - got there because they could imagine things differently, and because they had the courage to pursue those different ideas.

Very few people will transform arts or science or sports or business. But we can all look to bring a little creativity into our lives and relationships. Take a look at this clip of Darren at the CNE to see what I mean.

Closing Wishes

Two weeks ago, we held our Closing Ceremonies. It was beautiful weather and a great celebration of 164 graduates and a variety of prize winners. I think the best speaker that day was the class valedictorian and outgoing Head Prefect, Alex Torrie. But here are some ramblings from me ...

Convocation addresses are interesting things. You often hear references to Telemachus and his Odyssey, or one of my favourites, Dr. Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go. Last year’s oft repeated theme was “You’re not special”. And there is lots going around this year from the speeches by people like the Obamas and Oprah.

I’ve attended well in excess of 50 graduations – some lower schools, numerous high school versions, but mainly university convocations. And I remember many of the speakers, the honorary degree recipients: Prince Charles & Lady Diana, Presidents, Governors General, Prime Ministers, Hollywood stars, famous musicians, brilliant minds. But what is most strange is that I can’t really remember what they said, including at my own high school graduation. I know that is probably more of a reflection of my own memory than of the greatness of the speakers, but I don’t think I am alone.

So, what should my message be today? In light of my own memories, I thought I could sit down after a minute, and that would likely make many people very happy. But not such a wise decision in front of the Chair of the Board, my new boss. So no, I can’t let you off the hook that easily

Two nights ago at the Leaving Class Dinner, I asked Dr. Sampson’s advising group what they wanted to hear. One guy said, “We want to hear that life will be a lot easier than high school.” And while I would love to say that, it would be gilding the lily. In fact, life will be much harder than high school, but, if you have the right attitude, it can also be more enjoyable and more rewarding.

What I do want to say is: Thanks, and make five wishes for you, the Leaving Class – the Senior 2s – but only Senior 2s for another few minutes.

If you think back to the first school Assembly of the year sitting on the floor in the gym, I asked for your patience and guidance to show me the ropes as the newbie Principal. But more than that, I asked you to focus on 4 things: relational leadership, empathy, acts of kindness, sense of optimism. And especially the Senior 2 class – because you are central in defining the culture for the whole school. By doing that you would define your class and how you are seen, not just for these last 10 months, but for 5 years from now, 25 years from now, and even 50 years from now, when you will have finally qualified for a free alumni reunion lunch. And this doesn’t just apply to how you see yourselves, but also for how all the other students at Appleby see you, how your families see the class of 2013, and for those of us who work here – your teachers and staff – see you.

I’m delighted to report that we’ve done the tally. We’ve seen some “ill-advised” choices and actions; and I am certain that there even more that we never found out about, thankfully. But, more to the point, you have shown many, many, many examples of remarkable achievements, of compassion, of creativity, and, most importantly, of kindness.   You have been a super leaving class. Appleby is a better place for having had the Class of 2013 lead us into our second century. So congratulations and thank you.

I also have five wishes for you. Let me explain.

My wife and I recently attended a most entertaining dinner in honour of close friends of ours, Michael and Kelly Meighen. At that dinner, the speakers and performers were Senator Hugh Segal, Stratford’s Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino, Actors Cynthia Dale and Geraint Wyn Davies, Premier Jean Charest, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Partisan politics aside, it was quite the line-up of speakers – all eloquent, funny and charming. The guests of honour referred to Kelly’s late father, Dick Dillon, a decorated war hero, Colonel-in-Chief of his regiment, first deputy minister of energy at Queen’s Park, and re-known educator as Western’s first Dean of Engineering. Michael and Kelly said that Dick Dillon’s favourite theme was Roots and Wings. And of all the great speeches that night, and even though they said nothing more on the subject, Roots and Wings is what I still remember. As soon as I heard it, I recognized that is the message I want to share with you.

When I told my dear wife, who blesses me as being my most honest and forthright critic. She rolled her big beautiful doe eyes (a look I am familiar with), and proclaimed, that is so old and everyone has done it! Of course, as usual, she is correct – it far from original. In fact, while it sounds like a song from Raffi or Valdi, the phrase was originally coined by mid-19^th Century US abolitionist clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher. But while my wife has the stylish new hat today, I have the microphone.

For those of you who were in Chapel this morning, you will sense that there is some alignment with these wishes and Canon Lennox’s sermon. You will have to determine whether great minds think alike or fools seldom differ.

My wish is for each and every one of the 164 members of the Class of 2013 is to have both deep, supportive and enriching roots to nurture you, as well as broad, strong and uplifting wings to allow you to soar.

Think about that for a moment. To fulfill your potential – and I know enough about you to say that each and every one of you has the potential to do wonderful things in your own way, whether it be in business, or in the arts, or in service to society, or in a profession, or in your relationships, or in helping others, or in some other endeavor – you have immense potential. It is our sincere hope that your Appleby experiences have opened up your minds to the possibilities of what you can do, where you may go, how great you are, and how much greater you can be. You have the ability and the tools.

What Wings is about for you, I would suggest, is not as much about your capacity, but moreso about the attitude and the courage to think boldly, to act audaciously. As Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Trust your gut, use your intuition, listen to your hunches. Think big!

And it is also about overcoming the fear of the fact that the route to greatness will include some fierce headwinds as well as storms of failure and loss.  

Conan O’Brien put it more eloquently when he returned to Harvard in 2000. He said:

"I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of this place, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.”

"I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.”

I think that the same applies to many Appleby alumni. You are high achievers and are used to the expectation of success. Everyone wants to be a winner, and is afraid of being seen as otherwise.

However, Kareem Abdul Jabaar put it succinctly when he said “You can't win unless you first learn how to lose.”

So part of the courage of using your wings must be the confidence or at least the comfort in understanding that you’ll have some very awkward forced landings along the way, and that is okay.

So whether you are a majestic eagle, or a fleet falcon like Hadfield, or a beautiful translucent luna moth, or a crazy adventurer on a hang glider, or an obnoxious, squawking Canada Goose, I wish for you the courage to use your wings to be able to sail through these tree tops, taste the clouds, and touch the sky.

But roots are equally important. Each of us is blessed to have a foundation – an interwoven mesh of roots composed of experiences – both positive and negative, of opportunities, love, kindness, faith and support provided by some combination of family, friends, classmates, teachers, coaches, and community. I have no doubt that for almost all of you, Appleby is a central part of that collage – it is an interconnecting bond. And the Appleby roots run both deep and wide.

As you have heard many times, they will be with you for your whole lives. Appleby will always be a part of your DNA.   Whether you want it to be or not, your experiences here – you victories and defeats, times in the spotlight and those in the audience, your laughter and you tears – these experiences have shaped who you are. But just as true, you are now always part of the Appleby DNA; part of a symbiotic continuum between 101 years of alumni and a living hive of activity here with current students, employees and families. And I am sincere in my hope that you and your families will stay connected; that you will continue to support your alma mater with your thoughts, with your words, and with your deeds. We need you.

And just as the secret to flying high is as much about having the wings as it is about having the courage to use them, the thing about roots isn’t so much whether you have them or not – because you all have a roots system and foundation. I wish also that you have the self-awareness and the humility to use your roots when you need them. To lean on others when you can do with some energizing. To accept a helping hand when times are tough. It isn’t always easy for someone in university to do that. Don’t be too proud.  Recognize that every single person at this ceremony has times when they must depend on others. Many of the people whom I admire the most in the world are those individuals who are both able to reach out and provide help to others, and equally, but perhaps more difficult, to be able to ask for help from them. Part of this wish is for you to think about your Appleby classmates – whether they are your university roommate or live half a world away – to understand who needs help, and to simply be there for them in those times. That will continue to make the Class of 2013 a great class.

So in closing, I said I wish for you 5 things:

·         Strong and powerful wings, and the courage to use them to soar

·         Deep and nurturing roots, and the humility to draw from them when you need support
·         And my fifth wish for you is the wisdom to know when to use one, and when to use the other

Finally and most importantly, to end where I began, thank you for being a terrific class, thank you for your kindness, thank you for guiding the newbie principal, and congratulations on this very happy achievement.

Year End Vids

Well ... the school year has ended.

For many students, classes, games, exams and performances seem like a distant memory as the warmth of summer, the excitement of camp or the cottage, the grind of summer jobs, or the freedom of time has quickly taken the largest share of mind.

For faculty, I suspect this also the case. For non-faculty employees, however, this can be a hectic time. Between facility developments, summer camps, our ESL summer program, the summer academy, and conferences, I suspect that we will have well in excess of 5,000 people on the campus.

As I look back on the last month, there was a huge range of events and activities. From performances, to year-end dinners, to the grad prom, to exams, to chapel services, to colours presentations, to Closing Ceremonies, June was huge and fast.

The last all-school Assembly was held a month ago. It was a happy occasion to wrap up a terrific year and have the Prefects say thanks to the student body.

I thought I would share a couple of videos that were shown that morning. The first is a video of Appleby's Cantus Choir singing as the feature group on-stage at Carnegie Hall. Their selection was impressive recognition of the calibre of these singers and of the music program at Appleby. Listen to the soundtrack to get an idea how great they are.

The second was a light-hearted melange of graduating students providing advice from their current selves to themselves of one year ago (and by extension, to the Grade 11 students about to start their last year.) While it is a bit rough, the video captures the joy and happiness of the leaving class. They are a class act. (PS Look for various faculty members showing off their dance moves later in the video.)

The Future of Learning and Sleep-in Mornings - Guest Blogger

Wednesday mornings are beloved by students as “sleep-in days” because classes start at 9 am rather than the usual 8 am. I suspect that we have many Appleby families who assume that it is also a “sleep-in- day” for the teachers. And while faculty may also love Wednesday mornings (okay, okay perhaps a bit of hyperbole there, but they certainly appreciate it,) it is not because of sleeping in, but rather, the hour is provided to them as an opportunity for professional development and collaboration. Each week there is a different focus. One week it may be linked to department meetings dealing with cross-grade initiatives within disciplines, and another may relate to PD around the use of IT in the classroom.

On a regular basis, the Wednesday morning sessions are dedicated to Professional Learning Communities – teams of teachers across divisions and disciplines working on innovative models for learning. These groups meet, share ideas, plan how to implement creative new initiatives, and evaluate them. Some are very practical and others more conceptual.

A couple of Wednesdays ago, some of these were presented in small seminars for all teachers to sample. I was able to stop in to about 6 of them, and was blown away by the variety of initiatives – everything from online learning models, to the modern application of Socratic methods, to exploring how we define inclusivity. They are powerful idea s that will have a great impact of Appleby. Just as importantly, the ability for Appleby to provide this flexibility allows us to attract and keep great teachers. Appleby is a place where very good faculty have the support and opportunity to become even better. As a people-based organization, this is a huge strategic priority and advantage.

I invited Graham Altham-Lewis, our Director of Learning & Teaching Innovation, who is the leader of these programs to guest blog about that session …

 

On 29 May, faculty had the opportunity to share their best practices and projects with other faculty.  Many faculty volunteered to present and we had a mini conference named Faculty Networking Breakfast with 12 different sessions, with faculty choosing three sessions to attend. 

Sessions included:

·       Creating a multi-faceted interdisciplinary projects to both teach the curriculum to Appleby students, and for Appleby students to create a product that will educate other students such as children in hospitals.

·       How collaboration on a creative and contextual assignment grew to include real world and virtual display with twitter, vine and augmented reality.

·       How to use technology within Microsoft one-note to give better feedback for student’s work using video and audio feedback.

·       2 sessions from different perspectives using TIGEd Global platforms to set up virtual classrooms for students to connect with other classes in other countries and learn together.

·       A cross curricular project that combined English and Computer Science with grade 8 students hiring the grade 10 and 11 students and working collaboratively to achieve their interdisciplinary project.

·       Grade 9 ASCENT Project Day; faculty sharing 5 different authentic, collaborative and cross curricular projects that grade 9 students will do one of their choosing during their ASCENT end of grade 9 assessment.

·       Using the software Socrative technology to enrich learning in the classroom; students have reacted very positively to this online platform that allows very quickly to gauge student learning as well as allowing students to collectively create class content.

·       Using the idea of a flipped classroom where content and knowledge is learned at home and in class the more complex problem solving and applications take place.

·        A session about inclusivity and acceptance; following a true story of a boy with Tourette syndrome and how society treats him through his life, and what this means to us at Appleby as we create an inclusive environment for the whole community.

·       How to develop leaders of character and help Captains of sports teams to be deliberately developed; giving all students the opportunity to develop these skills.

The variety of presentations on offer was impressive indeed, and is testament to the creativity, innovation and dedication that the faculty possess to improve the learning experience for our students.  Thank you to all faculty who presented and the feedback from the sessions from other faculty has been extremely positive with faculty learning from their peers!

The Happiness Quiver

In my last 2 posts, I talked about socio-emotional health and the growing issues of anxiety and depression in young people. In this post, I’d like address solutions – ideas about how to help kids solve what can be some scary circumstances. What are the most important arrows for them to have in their quivers when they face these kinds of obstacles?

Resiliency … we are using that word more and more. In part, it is because our collective ability to deal with disappointment, adversity, and failure seems to be inversely proportional to our access to opportunities, our increasing standard of living, the common expectations in successful families that their children will usually “win”, and the consequences of the well-intended parental hope that their children will not have to face emotional/esteem catastrophes.

My good friend Suzanne Heft is a big fan of marketing guru Seth Godin and sent along one of his recent posts about resiliency. Seth talks about resilience and the most common strategies for how people (and groups) try to manifest resilience “in ascending order from brave to stupid:”

·         Don't need it

·         Invest in a network

·         Create backups

·         Build a moat

The more I see of young people and the more I hear from wise souls, the clearer is my view that resilience and challenging experiences are synergistic, and can both contribute greatly to a longer-term, optimistic outlook on life. So, understanding that we get better at jumping over hurdles the more we have already vaulted (or run through), the biggest challenge in schools is helping kids deal with issues for the first time – the first major academic failure, being dumped by your first true love, the first time you really disappoint those whom you love, the first time you feel isolated from your closest friends, or the first you have to deal with the death of someone you love.  

While I am certainly not an expert in mental health and wellness, I have had the opportunity to get to know and/or work with a wide range of people who are.   There are lots of views on strategies and effective practices, and, like most complex issues, there is a combination of right answers. The proper balance depends on each person. Like most health matters, finding that right combination to a complex enigma is as much dependent on the person as on the condition.

Here are some of the things that we – as schools, teachers, parents, and friends – should be considering when dealing with both medical issues like anxiety, depression, as well as non-medical hurdles like intense stress and failure:

·         Sense of community: There is lots of research showing that mental health issues are both fewer and less intense in areas where there is a greater sense of community and attachment. There is some interesting research that relates to the role of the internet and “virtual communities” – some which may seem counter-intuitive to those of who are not as technologically native as students today. The implications of “community” are clear for schools. Does each student feel some sense of connection? Does he/she have some friends? Is there at least one adult at the school with whom s/he can speak when feeling under duress? Does the school feel like a home? If the answer to any of these questions is no, we have to figure out how to do it better.

My read of Appleby is that school culture here is already very strong. I’ve had lunch with about 500 students in small groups over the year and in most cases, I’ve been able to ask them about school culture. While there are some opportunities to improve things, I was very happy to hear their reflections on what seems like a very positive and warm environment.

·        Understanding that “you are not alone”:  One of the terrible factors in the past has been that people struggling with these kinds of conditions weren’t aware of anyone else in the same boat. The ability for someone who is depressed to talk with others who are, or who have, faced the same can make a huge difference. The same principles applies to children dealing with divorce, or a death in the family, or trying to come to grips with things like sexual orientation or religious beliefs. There is great benefit to knowing that others have struggled with the same issues and been able to overcome them. This kind of interaction, either one-on-one or through support groups, allows for some of the despair to be relieved and replaced by hope. And I know, from close friends who have dealt with depression, that hope is often the thing they need the most, especially during the first few bouts. However well-intended and empathetic a family member or friend is, they cannot take the place of someone who has walked in the same shoes.

·        Self-awareness: One of the great gifts that wise people have is self-awareness. Growing-up should include increasing self-awareness. (Sadly, there are lots of adults whose tanks are running alarmingly close to empty in this regard.) An important role we play as schools and parents is the encouragement of self-awareness – helping all of students understand how as individuals they think, how they react, how they process, interpersonal skills, how others see them,  those things they are good at, and, most importantly, those things they aren’t so good at. It is only with understanding of the last point that an individual can start to be truly comfortable in her own skin, and be open to strategies that can help redress these vulnerabilities. As schools talk about leadership, character education and preparing for the life beyond high school, I wonder whether students have enough self-awareness, and what else we should be doing to better develop it.

·        Ability to ask for help: If self-awareness includes the ability and the willingness to understand vulnerabilities, then it is also the most helpful foundation to be able to ask for help. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of mental health, and is particularly an issue with men, for whom vulnerability can be seen as being anathema to masculinity. A common refrain of some families and friends of those who committed suicide was that they had no idea things were so bad. The sufferer never said that he was in this much difficulty. As a community, part of our job is to ensure that the individual does not feel alone. We have to find ways as adults to weave into our narratives the fact that we have faced very difficult situations (see post on The Story of Family), and that we were able to cope by reaching out to others.  Asking for help is a show of strength rather than weakness.

·        Perspective and Experience: It is a truth that for most things in life, reps count. The more you do something, the better you get at it. While we often think in terms of athletic prowess – putting or shooting hoops, or laps – and other things we want/like to do, the same things apply to the most difficult events in life, including dealing with emergencies or tragedies. The Nietzsche quote, made popular again recently through songstress Kelly Clarkson, “That which does not kill you, will make you stronger”, applies to dealing with death, with loss and with failure. As adults, one of the most important roles we play for young people is to serve as guides through these difficult journeys rather than shields from them. People I am very close with who have struggled with anxiety or depression have also told me that they found that dealing with tough times often became a bit easier over time (although no less unpleasant) because they knew that they would get through them and things would get better – they had hope.

·        Diagnosis and Treatment: Medical science has come a very long way in how it deals with mental health. There are so many examples of how psychological and psychiatric counseling and treatment allow people to deal with these conditions either in terms of curing them, or allowing them to live in a fully functioning way. If the afflicted and their families are able to come to grips with asking for help, it is remarkable how freeing a proper diagnosis and effective treatment can be. From the school perspective, we are increasingly finding that a proper diagnosis is an essential prerequisite to our providing the proper supports for a student.

·        Skills to cope: Last week, I was talking with a colleague about whether students today have sufficient skills to cope with highly stressful circumstances. It seems to me that the line between bona fide mental illness and having difficulty dealing with high pressure/high stress is hazy. Clearly, many young people have a difficult time coping, and families are understandably concerned about confusing a normal stress-related reaction with a major diagnosable condition. There are lots of well-defined strategies for how to manage stress, and we have many people at Appleby with lots of experience in this area. From a programmatic standpoint, it seems increasingly important not to protect kids from all stress, but instead give age-appropriate challenges AND the tools to self-manage and navigate the through the shoals, even if the outcome isn’t always perfect. While some people think these tools (often called “soft skills” – tactics like chunking, organizational skills, relaxation, time management, triage skills, problem solving methodologies, etc.) are secondary, I think they can be among the most important arrows for people to have in their quivers to be successful at university and in life.

This has been a heavy set of 3 posts, so my next few will be more light-hearted and celebrate this wonderful time, when we look back on the year, celebrate our achievements, and congratulate our graduates.

Here are some other resources dealing with mental health and wellness:

·         The Canadian Institute for Health Information

·         CAMH Knowledge Exchange

·         Resources from the Jack Project

·         Queen’s University’s Principal’s Commission on Mental Health Report

·         Mental Health in Halton Region

The Anxiety Wealth Connection

In my last post, I talked about the sea change in how society is viewing mental health and how prevalent these issues are. I decided to revisit this topic because of articles that were recently sent my way, as well as the experiences of two close friends who are dealing with significant anxiety issues with their university-aged children – both of whom are what I would consider to be great kids and high achievers. Finally, I recently met with a most interesting parent of Appleby alumni. Raised by immigrant parents in a tough part of Toronto, he has gone on build an extraordinary business empire that stretches across 32 countries. Among other subjects, we discussed the challenges of raising children in times and places of affluence, and how to provide enough “real life” difficult experiences outside of “the bubble.”

The first piece sent my way (in this case by my wife Alison) was a Reuters article about a paper authored by Suniya S. Luthar, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University: “I Can, Therefore I Must: Fragility in the Upper Middle Class.” The article outlines the reality of increasing polarization of educational investment and experiences in American society as the wealthy pay more to ensure premium education (i.e. independent school education and high-end private universities.) In part, this is happening because of parents are compelled to prepare their children for the more competitive and flatter world in which they will live. Especially in times of fiscal restraint, the gap between haves (those who can afford premium education) and have-nots seems to be widening. And while the study is clearly American (like most things, Canada does not have the same degree of polarization,) her title is typically Canadian in its labeling of the “Upper Middle Class.” Rich, poor, or somewhere in between, we all seem to prefer to be considered in the middle class spectrum.

On the surface Dr. Luthar’s conclusions seem shockingly counter-intuitive – that children growing up in privileged, affluent environments are very much an “at risk” group.  She states, “We happened to find that substance use, depression and anxiety, particularly among the girls, were much higher than among inner-city kids.” She then goes on to say, ““What we are finding again and again, in upper-middle-class school districts, is the proportion who are struggling are significantly higher than in normative samples,” she said. “Upper-middle-class kids are an at-risk group.”

I know many people who fear that there is a culture of victimization that seems to be growing as individuals who do not achieve what they want, or covet, or feel they deserve, chalk it up to some inherent systemic unfairness with a giant target on their particular backs. The “at risk” stamp is sometimes seen as a desirable attribute. However, in my experience, while the shoe may fit some, the vast majority of people in at risk categories do not in any way reflect this view. Moreover, it doesn’t take much life experience to realize that, due to family, economic realities, genetics, the geography of birth, and plain bad luck, there are many, many people have to climb a steeper hill that the average person. It’s just hard to imagine that the affluent have treadmills with a steeper incline that those with fewer economic advantages.

But here is Dr. Luthar’s premise, which has been supported by the evidence of her study: In a world where families invest more and more in their children – sports programs, travel, camps, coaching, tutoring, and yes … independent school education – there is an almost limitless range of opportunities for children. But with those opportunities come huge demands and expectations for performance and fulfillment. Her study describes a world in which the opportunities, and therefore the demands, for upper-middle-class children can be overwhelming. The inability to fulfill these demands can be psychologically crippling. I am sure that this is further compounded in families with a legacy of high achievers – where the base expectation for “success” means performing in the top percentile or better. Kids who perform in the average range may feel (or be seen) as failures.

“It is an endless cycle, starting from kindergarten,” Dr. Luthar said. “The difficulty is that you have these enrichment activities. It is almost as if, if you have the opportunity, you must avail yourself of it. The pressure is enormous.”

Educators see many examples of this. In some cases these sometimes unattainable expectations are self-defined by students. In other cases, parents lay down the expectations (I have been amazed at circumstances where parents’ demands far exceed any level of performance that they themselves attained at the same age.) And in other cases, while parents may never say a thing and, indeed, may deliberately NOT set an unrealistically high bar, their children may infer all sorts of expectations that set them up for misery.  

Over the last few decades, many of the senior people in education I know, especially at the secondary and university levels, have recognized a significant upward swing in both anxiety and depression. I have a number of good friends who have served in university counseling roles such as Deans of Students, Chaplains, and advisors. They all talk about how much pressure these kids feel that they are under.

Of course, as parents, we also want to ensure that our children aren’t lazily floating through life. We want to them to take advantage of the gifts that they have been given. But where is the right line?

A great gift in life, especially for teenagers – is a trio of traits: a) to feel that you belong, b) to be self-aware, and c) to be comfortable in your own skin.

So, what does that mean for us at Appleby? And what about education generally? In my next post, I’m going to outline some thoughts on how we can empower kids to develop these traits and to help them cope when times may not be so good.

As always, I would be delighted to hear your comments and thoughts. (ivannostrand@appleby.on.ca)

The #1 Danger for Children

I have blogged before about mental health, but have recently seen a couple of things that bear repeating, so I'm doing a three-post piece on mental health, the challenges for us, and some strategies to address them…. 

One of the sea changes in Canadian society over the last decade or so has been the emergence of mental health from an “in the closet” subject into a mainstream concern. Sadly, the catalyst of this has in part been the range of tragedies – suicides, bullying, and other forms of harm – that people have seen and read about. While I am not sure whether there are more or fewer of these occurrences compared to 25 years ago, what is clear is that we talk about them far more. Media cover then, institutions are more transparent about them, and families are often more open, despite the crippling impact the events have had on their lives. While there is some debate about whether the profile may cause some people to consider actions that they would have not otherwise, most experts I know agree that the heightened profile is far better than where we used to be. Of course, this is because many families who dealt with mental health used to feel that they were the only ones, the exceptions. The oppressive, suffocating fear of stigma drove the subject deep into the dark.

I cannot think of a family I know well who has not dealt with mental illness in some way – through a parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt or child – and my own is no exception. The stats are stunning: 20% of Canadians have experienced or will experience mental health challenges; 1 million suicides per year worldwide, 30,000 in the US, 4,000 in Canada; it is the largest health threat and #1 cause of death for young people.

A number of high profile Canadians have shined light on this subject by sharing their own families’ stories. The early one I remember was the great Canadian, Hon. Michael Wilson, whose son Cameron struggled with depression before taking his own life. Others like Valerie Pringle, Shelagh Rogers and Mary Walsh are some of many who, through their own story-telling, are opening up people’s understanding to how common these afflictions are, how they are not alone, and how, in most cases, there are ways to cope and/or get better.

One of the most powerful stories is being told through the Jack Project, founded by Eric Windeler in memory of his son who committed suicide at university three years ago. Here is Eric delivering a TED talk on the death of his son at the university they both attended. You will see that I have used some of Eric’s messages in this post because of the power of the message. The Jack Project is doing some amazing things and is one of the organizations that is changing the way we deal with mental health in young people.

In my next entry, I’ll talk about some of the emerging issues in education, including a provocative study about risk factors relating to children from affluent backgrounds.