It's Not Just a Phase

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According to tilleczek, Ferguson, Campbell and Lezeu (2014) "Growing income inequality and mental health challenges for young people have now been termed the millennium morbidity to signal the ongoing problematic link between poverty and mental health." Mental health is the most critical issue amongst young youths in relation to poverty at both a global and national level. "The World health organization (2008), for instance, is now squarely addressing the effects of income inequality on youth well-being in the last century, known as the new morbidity and characterized by emotional and social problems and learning difficulties." (tilleczek, Ferguson, Campbell and Lezeu, 2014). There are many connections being made between the inequality of growing incomes, to mental health, and physical health for young people, The term being used for these connections is the millennium morbidity.

Retrieved from: https://www.yumpu.com
/en/document/view/24640823/formal-
customary-care-ministry-of-children-and-youth-services

"The World health organization (2008) is calling for “an urgent need to scale up policies, interventions and investments” (p. 3) for child and youth mental health promotion and provision."(tilleczek, Ferguson, Campbell and Lezeu, 2014). As an educator I believe one of the most important things  within your classroom is to build relationships with your students, creating a trusting environment where you students feel comfortable to open up, discuss with you and ask you for help when they need it.
 I also believe it is important to be able to read your students reactions in order to determine if something changes with their personality, actions, attendance and etc. This is important in order for you as an educator to help your students with any problems they may be having by noticing a change in them and respectfully discussing/asking them about it. In relation to mental health noticing these changes can allow you to help them get the proper help so that they can become healthy again. I personally can empathize with students because I have lost someone important in my life to mental health and therefore helping students who have mental health issues is extremely important to me. I also understand that each individual deals with mental health differently. 
By knowing this I know the importance of listening to the individual to see how they feel and how they want to address the situation and then moving onto the next step from there (i.e. going and having a conversation with the guidance counsellor, the student and yourself). The image above shows the front page of A Shared Responsibility: Ontario’s Policy Framework for Child and Youth Mental Health (ontario ministry of children and youth services, 2006). This Framework states that 15% to 21% of children and youth (approximately 467,000 to 654,000) are affected by mental health disorders that cause significant symptoms or impairment and is a good document to help teachers with any questions they have about mental health for children and youth. Lastly, below is a video that discusses mental health into more detail and therefore will hopefully leave you with a better understanding about what mental illness is and the facts behind it. 

References

Tilleczek, K., Ferguson, M., Campbell, V., and Lezeu, K. E., (2014). Mental Health and Poverty in Young Lives: Intersections and Directions. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health. 33(1). Retrieved from: https://lms.brocku.ca/access/content/group/EDUC8P02D01FW2016LEC001/Week%204%20-%20Language%2C%20SRI%2C%20Mental%20Health/Mental%20Health%20_%20Poverty%20_Tilleczek%20et%20al_.pdf

Health and Physical Education: Who has the RIGHT to play

As a health and physical education teacher,  I believe in the importance of physical activity for all students because of the benefits it can bring to an individual physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally. Some of the benefits that physical activity can bring to an individual are displayed within the image below.

Retrieved from:http://activegrand.ca/healthy-living/bene/

Since physical activity promotes all of these things, I believe it is important for students to take Health and Physical Education (HPE) throughout each year of their schooling. In order to promote HPE students must encounter positive relationships to physical activity at a young age and within their HPE classes in elementary schools. Students who generally do not take HPE are those who excel strongly within the maths, sciences, arts, and those who have mental, physical and or emotional disabilities. In high school I was considered part of the "athletes" and therefore felt extremely comfortable within the gym and while taking HPE. Part of the reason I wanted to become an HPE teacher was to change the beliefs behind HPE from being an athlete focused course to an  inclusive and positive learning space for the "non-athletic" students too. This is why I believe the subject of ableism is so important to me and my beliefs behind HPE.

Retrieved from: http://www.skepticalob.com/2015/
03/are-natural-childbirth-and-lactivism-ableist.html

According to Storey (2007) "Rauscher and McClintock (1996) described ableism as a pervasive system of discrimination and exclusion that oppresses people who have mental, emotional, and physical disabilities… Deeply rooted beliefs about health, productivity, beauty and the value of human life, perpetuated by th public and private media, combine to create an environment that is often hostile to those whose physical, mental, cognitive, and sensory abilities… fall out of the scope of what is currently defined as socially acceptable (p.198)" (p.56). There is a major importance to implementing disability content into the curriculum and school activities. There are some clubs for students with disabilities, like S.N.A.P, and Best Buddies however, this is just the beginning. These buddy programs promote a non disabled student to help a disabled student and therefore not promoting equity and equality. Disability content should be infused with school boards, textbook companies, into all aspects of each curriculum and more in order to promote equity and equality.

Within HPE there are many ways to create an equal and equitable classroom. Having students participate in sitting volleyball if there is a student with a physical disability allows all students to particapte equally. Other activities are wheel chair basketball, scooter soccer and by modifying regular games like volleyball to use a bright beach ball that moves slower and is easier to hit. Although I have a bunch of ideas for including everyone into HPE there is still information about ableism that I do not know and more information that I could learn in order to provide an even more inclusive HPE classroom for everyone. Therefore I will continue to learn about ableism and how I can help integrate students with disabilities better into the school and more specifically my HPE classroom.

References 

Storey, K. (2007) Combating Ableism in Schools. Heldref Publications. Retrieved from: https://lms.brocku.ca/access/content/group/EDUC8P02D01FW2016LEC001/Week%2011%20-%20Ableism/combating%20ableism%20in%20schools%20_Storey_.pdf

Treating everyone with Equity Dignity and Respect!

When I started my University degree under the Concurrent Education program, I never actually thought about the importance of and need for integrating multicultural learning into all subjects (i.e. Math, Physical Education) as opposed to only subjects like the Social Studies and English's. I knew the importance of understanding the diverse cultures of the students within your classroom in order to gain a positive relationship with them but never considered the importance of teaching about and to these cultures in specific.  Banks and Tucker discusses how a math teacher said to banks after his Multicultural Education presentation that "What you said is fine for social studies, but it has nothing to do with me." He then discusses how teachers within the subjects of the maths and sciences must think that multicultural education was simply content integration and therefore he developed the

5 DIMENSIONS OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

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According to Banks and Tucker the First Dimension is where it all started. By putting African Americans in the curriculum, then Mexican Americans in the curriculum, and then Asian Americans in the curriculum we began with the content integration. Content integration is important for multicultural education however Banks states "with content integration, language arts and social studies teachers can do more than the physics teacher" and that a physics teacher may be able to create a poster with famous female physicists or a minority physicists however this is not what we are trying to teach through Multicultural Education. Therefore the first dimension of content integration is important however you will notice that as I discuss the other 4 dimensions discussed by Banks and Tucker they allow for more teachers like the math and science teachers to get involved and be a part of multicultural education. 

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The Second dimension focuses on Knowledge construction. Within this dimension Banks and Tucker discusses that the teacher should guide the students learning in order to help them "understand, investigate and determine the implicit cultural assumptions and frames of reference and perspectives of the discipline they're teaching" and therefore help kids with the learning process. It is knowledge construction that helps students become critical thinkers and readers and therefore causes students to think about the content that they are reading about and writing about in order to better understand the content. 

Teachers are to change their teaching methods in order to provide students from diverse racial groups and of any gender with a positive learning environment to achieve. Changing these methods for the diverse racial groups and different genders is known as equity pedagogy and is the third dimension discussed by Banks and Tucker. As Discussed above Content integration is when a physics teachers creates a poster of famous female or minority physicists and therefore equity pedagogy would be a physics teacher changing his or her way of teaching in order to provide an environment for the female student and the African American student to learn physics more effectively. Therefore equity pedagogy focuses on providing different teaching methods within the classroom to meet the needs of the diverse students and allowing them to succeed. 

Retrieved from http://www.scc.losrios.edu/src/2016/02/29/professional-development-activities-spring-2016-february-29-march-6/

According to Banks and Tucker the fourth dimension of their multicultural education is prejudice reduction. The third and fourth dimension is where all the teachers no matter the subject are able to be involved. Within this dimension teachers are to work within their classroom in order to reduce prejudice in the classroom. "All educators should use methods to help kids develop more positive racial attitudes (Banks and Tucker). 

Retrieved from http://prejudicereduction.co.uk/about-us/

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The fifth dimension goes outside of individual classrooms within the school and focuses on school wide culture and social structure. The goal within this dimension is to make the entire school culture more equitable and knowledgeable. It is about take the four other dimensions and growing them school wide. Within this dimension Banks and Tucker look at student groupings, teacher groupings, participation on sports teams and many other aspects of the school structure. Therefore the fifth dimension is about empowering school culture and social structure in order to allow every student and staff member to feel included and welcomed. 

As I discussed at the beginning of this post, I always considered learning about the students cultures within my classroom in order to gain a better relationship within them and ultimately promoting a more comfortable and inviting learning environment. However, after reading this article and learning about multicultural education into more detail I have learnt that it is more than this, it involved meeting all 5 dimensions that will ultimately provide each and every student with the opportunity to succeed. 

References

Banks, James A. and Michelle Tucker. “Multiculturalism’s Five Dimensions.” NEA Today Online. Retrieved from: https://lms.brocku.ca/access/content/group/EDUC8P02D01FW2016LEC001/Week%201/Multiculturalism%205%20dimentions%20_Banks_.pdf