CURRICULUM
Remote Learning
Positive Education
Perspective and Performance in Uncertain Times In the last week in April, Loreto Toorak remotely celebrated Positive Education and Wellbeing Week. Our Wellbeing Councillors, Natalie Catalfamo and Grace Lambos, smiled their way onto student screens, announcing wellbeing activities for each year level, encouraging engagement in the wellbeing program and promoting to the students a sense of ‘we are all in this together’. The ‘new normal’ in this COVID-19 world has challenged many of us to adapt quickly, however, we were well positioned to meet this challenge. Our girls have the benefit of an education that opens them up to opportunity. They know and participate in positive mental, physical and performance-related wellbeing practices. They draw on their VIA strengths, their knowledge of growth mindset, mindfulness and hope theory, while bearing in mind that ‘this too shall pass’. Ben Crowe, a mindset coach and “the man in the stand behind Ash Barty”, was revered for his practical and inspiring offerings on performance mindset by our school audiences after his visit to us last year in April. Since then, his podcasts and videos have gone viral as people worldwide learn how they can be their best self when “certainty and routine have been replaced with uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” In Ben’s
YouTube clip, Perspective and Performance in Uncertain Times, he shares the power of acceptance in growing our capacity in these times. In a wonderful gift to our Loreto Toorak community, Ben engaged in an interview with our Wellbeing Councillors, Natalie and Grace, offering parents, students and staff strategies to best adapt to change. Highlights from this interview are below. On behalf of our school community, we thank Ben Crowe and his Executive Assistant and alumna Alecia Whitelaw (Mustey, 2001), for their generosity in assisting with this presentation. JULES DENNETT PUCOVSKI HEAD OF POSITIVE EDUCATION KATHRYN TUCKER POSITIVE EDUCATION COORDINATOR
Natalie and Grace in an Interview with Ben Crowe What advice can you offer to students who are feeling a sense of loss for the year they had ‘planned’? For those experiencing a sense of loss, I think any expectations that any of us had for 2020 have literally been thrown out the window. So if we’re still thinking “shoulda coulda woulda”, we are effectively lamenting the past, we are focusing our attention on something we can’t control, which will naturally cause us to be frustrated or upset or angry. The first step is to acknowledge that. To accept it. Yes there are things and activities and events that we have missed out on, and that is disappointing. Acknowledge it. Accept it. It sucks. Because then we can process it, decide what to do about it. We put our life into context and our thoughts into perspective. The way to do that is to practice empathy for others and appreciation for ourselves and what we have. 20
Last year, you shared with us that “our greatest growth comes from our darkest times”, which really resonated with our school community. Why do you think there has been such a strong connection to this message? In terms of our greatest growth coming from our darkest times, we can use this as an opportunity to really find out what we are made of. This period will have such an amazing impact on so many people’s lives and our values are often determined through our dark times because we have to draw on some energy source to get us through this chapter. It might be courage, it might be perseverance or resilience, it might be love or family. Often our values are identified through difficult times, when we draw on a particular energy source, so I think we will look back on this chapter as defining moments in shaping who we are and what we are made of.
