Words by Smiley Team
Adrian Bethune - part time primary school teacher, author, and founder of Teachhappy sat down with us to share his philosophy for education and how we can make changes that improve the wellbeing of young people.
Adrian will make up part of our panel The Big Education Action Planwhere we will be breaking down how was can transformation education for a positive future. Make sure you register your place for free and catch up with our interview with our host Rae Snape.
Why did you decide to get involved in education?
"I retrained to become a primary school teacher in 2010- before that I worked in the music industry. But when I was in music, I signed up to a mentoring scheme.
"And I mentored a boy through a charity called Chance UK. He was being taught in a Pupil Referral Unit, because his behaviour was often quite angry and aggressive in class, and he was at risk of being kicked out of school. I mentored him for a year and that experience is what made me want to retrain to be a teacher.
"I wanted to get into the classroom and help more children, like this boy that I mentor to kind of fit in to learn to be happy and to have a successful life and ultimately to thrive."
What's your vision for education?
"My philosophy is that the purpose of education is to allow children and the people that could look after them to thrive and flourish in life. I believe that is the ultimate purpose. On its own, it's no good on its own just to have knowledge and qualifications - you need to have a deep sense of fulfilment or purpose or pleasure in life.
"So I think school should teach children not only knowledge and skills, but ultimately, give them what they need to carve out a life that they want to lead that they find pleasurable and purposeful."
How do you make those big concepts like purpose and fulfilment comprehensible for young children?
"From my experience, young children understand these big concepts when you break it down for them. Children in my year five class can explain what neuroplasticity is, for example. They might not know the word but they would be able to explain that it's the brain's ability to learn to change to grow."
How do we ensure that teaching wellbeing and happiness skills doesn't just become another thing for teachers to have to do?
"We fail in kind of promoting positive mental health in children if we completely forget about teachers. Teachers' physical and mental health has to be paramount in any discussions around well being in schools.
"What grinds teachers down the most is having a list of tasks that are meaningless. I haven't met a teacher that doesn't want to work hard for that, you know, the benefit of children. And when that work is enjoyable, and purposeful, when there's a real kind of important reason for doing that work, teachers will go above and beyond to do it.
"But, when you're asked to tick boxes and jump through hoops that aren't helping the children in your care, that is is what I think eventually burns teachers out."
Has the pandemic provided an opportunity to reconsider what education should look like?
"The pandemic has given us the perfect opportunity to stop to kind of step back to reflect on the purpose of education, whether what we're currently doing is working, whether it's fit for purpose.
"We know from behavioural science, that when you have significant changes, to your kind of lifestyle, to your habits, behaviours - and a global pandemic would be an example of that - if that is the opportune time to change what you're doing to establish new kind of habits and behaviours.
"And so this is the ripe opportunity to make those changes. Because we have been shown this pandemic has highlighted the problems with our system, the problems with accountability, the problems with systemic racism, the problems with an exam system that isn't fit for purpose, and actually seems to disadvantage, a significant number of students, which is completely wrong."
What is your vision for education?
"I think where I see us going from here is having some constructive conversations about the purpose of education, because everything else is just tinkering around the edges.
"Unless all of us involved in education are talking and can agree that the purpose of what what is it we want for our young people - for for now and then for the future - there will be no progress. In terms of going forward, we need to have conversations, we need to listen. We need to find some common ground and then we need to work out how we get there."
