Child Well-being Symposium: My Thoughts and a few notes from Experts

Research and data can be incredibly dry especially when one is not involved directly in a distinct discipline. However the driving force that connects us all is our humanity. Children are the preservation of our humanity and future. The opening address by Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey of the University of Canterbury resonated powerfully as it highlighted the necessity of cross-disciplinary collaboration and wholistic strategy to address the complexity of child-wellbeing in New Zealand.

As a teacher the multiple and complex factors that affect the well-being of the children in my class are often out of my reach to change. This leads to a certain level of frustration and a desire for change. In a positive light, this barrier to change is the multiplicity of the problem. It is the necessity for relationship, family, health, and culture. It is the requirement to collaborate. It is the understanding that I cannot make this change as a teacher on my own.

On the route to university, I considered the requirement for change in society in order for the well-being of society, specifically of children to increase. I noted a personal recognition of the current societal fashion for individuality, separation and advancement of the individual and the lens of success as individual accomplishment. This modern and generally Americanised or European view differs from what we know about Pacific and Maori culture. While the focus is on the individual it follows that there is a hunger for and lack of engagement in the wholistic success of a community.

For example, I have recently taken up pottery classes, dance classes, mountaineering and and the learning of a new language. All for the advancement of my personal development. These pursuits have taken over the time that I spend at home in the evening. I no longer have family and friends over for dinner because I am not at home. My interactions with family and friends have diminished significantly.

I would suggest that attention on individual success, individual desires, the idea that a successful family includes two working parents on a career pathway in a modern home, has created a drought of relational interactions and wholistic success. I would add that it is exacerbated by the introduction of a constant personal device of the modern digital era and attention directed to the device drains from significant relationships.

I am suggesting that as a society we lack consequential relationships with our children and each other.

In conclusion, I have chosen a responsibility to check, balance and question the motivations and values of the actions that I take. Am I valuing the interactions that I have with my colleagues family and children? Do I place a priority on the success of a whole or are my motivations self-focused?

Is our selfishness as a society directly linked to the well-being of society?



The following notes are the highlights and thoughts that have stuck from the second day of the Child Well-being Symposium.

Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey address:

Child well-being is a highly complex. It is influenced by a multiplicity of factors that  includes culture, societal factors, sub cultures, environment, health and education.



We need a broad view, a meta analysis of what we know already and we need to formulate it into a better analysis of well being.

This has implications for other departments, a horizontal resonance across all policies, reflected in housing, health education and more. Child well being is linked to house hold income.
This makes it one of the worlds grand challenges, a wicked problem, - obvious in its need to be addressed - and is a huge struggle to address because of its complexity for policy makers.

We cannot address this in a traditional way. It requires a linear approach, a multi-disciplinary approach. The University of Canterbury is looking for groups to mobilise together to address key issues in society. We must move out of our disciplinary silos as experts - no single disciplinary science has the expertise necessary to assist us on the issues of child well-being. It requires working across boundaries and facilitating networks and collaborative arrangements for local problems and developing good practices that can be replicated.

A holistic view of old methodological problems should be included and re-addressed. There is often a specific hierarchy of academic methodologies where some are viewed as more important than others.
Knowledge in all its manifestations is valid and pertinent. It is our role to recognise knowledge in other forms not to just reject this knowledge as anecdotal, local knowledge, or generational knowledge. This knowledge needs to be brought together to breach the divide.

There is strong evidence that inputting into child well being really pays off but it is our responsibility to find the evidence and act on it so that we can make a difference in society for many generations to come.

In reference to our research studies: How does our collective knowledge make a difference to people's lives?

Children, their well-being and their learning: Notes from an Interdisciplinary learning panel

What does doing 'well' mean? It means a 'well', healthy culture, a healthy iwi,  a 'well' whanau. This translates into a well individual.

Half of all homicides are family violence related. Pasific children are 5 times more likely to die from family violence. See the following link to NZ statistics.
https://nzfvc.org.nz/family-violence-statistics

We build resilient children by building their language and thinking. After a while the abstract becomes concrete. ( Vygotsky)

Andy Blunden, 1997

Vygotsky and the Dialectical Method

Teacher Dispositions - Misty Sato

Dispositions are only apparent within a context in response to a contextual antecedent.
Pedagogical choices are a reflection of a teacher's dispositions.
Who am I and what is the person that I am? What effect do my dispositions have on others?

Literacy Success and Self-Concept in Older readers - Professor John Everatt

Well being and emotional factors highly influence a child's literary success.
See  graph slide and insert here.
Social and emotional skills integrated with literary skills have the most effect on overcoming difficulties dyslexic children face. The feeling of success needs to occur for developing approaches to overcoming problems.

How do we teach a strategy within the context that the child or adult needs to learn?
 ie. a 13 year old does not want to sound out d/o/g. Teaching strategies need to be interesting and build coping strategies within the child. The student needs to view themselves as a successful learner through the strategies being used.
There is a cognitive aspect - how good you feel about yourself- and a resilience factor - do you feel you can cope - in literacy.

There is a massive social element involved in literacy intervention and literacy difficulties. Individuals don't put themselves in isolation from others intentionally. The context of the child in isolation is how they feel about themselves in relation to others.

Some strategies:

• Think about getting students to do the things they are going to be successful in.
• Focus on meaning first rather than on phonology, but, after success begins, start to introduce the phonology as these are vital and necessary skills. 
• Use texts appropriate to the age of the child. 
• Get the child re-engaged in learning.
• Act on the intervention in groups of individuals rather than singularly.
• Develop fluency through repetition - the re-reading of a text.

The following is the 2018 data from the research programme.

Insert data slide
Results at the end of 2018 - intervention in blue waiting to go through intervention in green  ( green no intervention)

Second slide
Group B has now gone through intervention and the green bar catches up with the blue.

Did this have a knock on effect in self-esteem and academic self concepts ( ability to do things)?
See slide

These factors do develop but it is delayed. It does not happen after the intervention but over time. Progress must not be ascribed to the intervention. ( ie. "I went to see Mr. __ and he was a good teacher." but rather "I know what I'm doing and I have the skills to overcome certain problems when they arise.") Resilience decreased during the intervention but negative mindsets decreased during the intervention also.

The Importance of Sleep - Associate Professor Laurie McLay

Insert slides

When we are deprived of sleep cognitive functions are compromised

See slide

Higher levels of externalising and internalising behaviours were noted from children who are sleep deprived.
We don't know the directionality of these behaviours - Do ASD/ ADHD / External behaviours cause sleep problems or vice versa?

How do we teach children to sleep and sleep independently?
See slide

Disclaimer: These notes may not accurately represent the theories and data as presented by these studies. They are simply my interpretation of what has been presented at this symposium and how I currently understand and rephrase what has been said.