Eliza Bell UC Grad Dip: Jane, Part 2

Jane Part 2

In the first post, I discussed how issues of accessibility, affordability, and education as a “basic need” were impacting Jane’s students; the huge amount of time spent in transit on the way to school and other challenges linked to education in rural settings seemed of critically importance. But the new information that many of Jane’s students are not “physically developed” forces us to consider some other serious issues that may be causing ill health, like poverty, malnutrition, family problems, stress, drug use and physical abuse. Reasons for the high rates of ill health that Jane is observing have been described as “a mix of economic, physical, social, environmental and sociocultural factors. The experience of these factors is increasingly shown to have psychosocial repercussions and to mediate how different groups define health and subsequently engage in health-promoting behaviours. (Dixon and Welch, 259).” Other research has shown that for rural adolescents, “structural disadvantage in rural areas (limited educational, employment opportunities, and recreational facilities) impact adversely on health outcomes, particularly mental health outcomes, and contribute to risk-taking behaviour” (Quine et al, online). So whatever the specific causes of their ill health, simply by virtue of being rural adolescents, they are not well-positioned to get the help they need.

What will students want and need from me? Profound health issues may be well outside the scope of what a teacher expects to address. But Jane can do a lot to promote her students’ well-being: she can talk to them, build rapport and gain trust, and advocate for them whenever possible. She has duty of care for her students, and in legal terms, might be held responsible if they were injured or very unwell and she didn’t report her observations. In ethical terms, she may be one of a very few concerned adults in her students’ lives, and her care and attention are hugely valuable. She might try approaching her teaching in a non-interventionist model, focusing on her students’ basic needs for belonging, power, freedom and fun (Krause, 465). If they trust her and feel supported in her classroom, they may experience more enjoyment and reduced stress, and have a clear friend and ally in the event that they need to seek adult support in dealing with a specific health concern.

Even children in basically good health who live in functional and supportive situations, but who have to travel great distances to get to school may not have time to eat healthy meals and get plenty of sleep and exercise; and their geographical isolation may make it more difficult for them to integrate with their peers in town, which can cause stress and social discomfort for them, as we see in Jane’s observation that some students find it difficult to “mix with the kids from town.”

Another thing Jane should consider is what cultural values she can do better to honor in her classroom. What are the cultural backgrounds of her students? What kind of learning is valued in those cultures? How might her worldview and understanding of intelligence be different from theirs? If she’s working with Indigenous students, it’s likely that schools have had a problematic relationship with communities in her region for a long time, and continue systematically to exclude Indigenous language and culture from curriculum: “Apart from some notable exceptions, most government schools in Australia provide a Western model of education. They follow a Western calendar, celebrate Christian holidays and provide education that reinforces Western culture and ways of learning” (HREOC, 70). Jane may have to think way outside the box of her experience and existing pedagogy; by learning more about where her students are coming from culturally, she might be able to align her teaching more with what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. If she can find the energy, despite her fatigue and low morale, it would actually a great opportunity to learn and expand her understanding of her students, herself and her world while becoming a better teacher.

References:

Bourke, L. et al (2004): Developing a conceptual understanding of rural health practice. School of Rural Health, University of Melbourne, Shepparton, Australia

Aust. J. Rural Health (2004) 12, 181–186

Accessed at: http://www.ruralhealth.utas.edu.au/gr/resources/docs/developing-a-conceptual-understanding-of-rural-health-practice.pdf