5 minute read
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.
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.
What advice can you offer to parents about modelling perspective and its pillars, acceptance and gratitude, for their children at this time?
Parents effectively set the agenda for the house and their children become a product of that environment, which is why they are the greatest role models in their children’s lives. So creating an environment that says thank you a lot; that doesn’t judge and compare with other families; that doesn’t judge whether things are negative or positive; nothing is that ever that bad, or that good, it just is what it is. An environment that provides unconditional love; that doesn’t determine self-worth by where we live or what we look like or our financial status or what’s score we got on a test - we need to practise thinking we are already unconditionally worthy. Creating an environment that practises humility is valuable. The world has just shown us who is in charge, so let go of that sense of expectation or entitlement like the world owes us something, and replace that with a beautiful sense of humility and grace.
In your message, you separate those who embrace vulnerability and those that see it as a weakness. How does embracing vulnerability improve performance mindset?
Embracing vulnerability effectively means being open and open-minded to the uncertainty and the emotional exposure of our new reality right now. We have never lived through a pandemic, so just normalising that and acknowledging that, and also “cutting ourselves some slack” and having a bit more selfcompassion for the imperfect ways we have to show up at the moment in home-schooling, and how hard that is for teachers as much as students. If we accept all of those imperfections and conditions and we lean in, rather than lean back, we will effectively adapt pretty quickly to this ‘new normal’. If we are adaptive to change then we are effectively embracing vulnerability as a strength. This is just so important right now.
Last year you came to the school and spoke with parents, staff and students about performance mindset: How can students develop real and achievable wellbeing and performance goals to develop their performance mindsets?
In terms of performance mindset, whether you are Ash Barty or whether you are a student at Loreto Toorak, anyone can recapture and reclaim their ultimate A-Game performance mindset. The formula requires us to accept the things we cannot control, and let them go. Then focus our attention back on the things that we can control, and the best version of ourselves. The way to develop the best version of ourselves is to find that performance, when you were absolutely at your best; you were in the zone. When you were unstoppable. Find the words that best describe how you were feeling in that performance, and then practise those words deeply and that becomes your A-Game. The best version of you.
Perspective and Performance in Uncertain Times
www.bit.ly/2WtDNxN
Loreto Toorak Q&A with Ben Crowe
www.vimeo.com/410844283
@mojocrowe and @bencrowe05
www.facebook.com/Mojo-Crowe-115936913184003
www.facebook.com/BenCrowe05
Website
www.mojocrowe.com
