By Jaya Carrier
I hope you’re all having a good week! This week, I was really interested in some research emerging about loneliness and combating increasing levels of loneliness in young people released by the OECD.
Objectives: To understand some of the key trends about loneliness and how educators might combat this
Summary:
The study suggests that loneliness appears to be increasing in young people, and particularly young people with SEND
The study explains that loneliness can be part of a chronic and vicious cycle, whereby a lonely individual becomes hyper-vigilant and primed to interpret all social cues as negative. This then makes other people react negatively to them, which then in turn leads to increasing feelings of disconnection
At a whole school level, feeling of loneliness can make a sense of connection and belonging at school diminish.
The report then suggests four whole school strands to combat loneliness:
1) Supporting students to develop their social skills
2) Enhancing social support
3) Increasing opportunities for social interaction
4) Addressing unhealthy cognition around social understanding
They also suggest how at a classroom level, opportunities for collaboration and building self-esteem will also be important
How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
What experiences of student loneliness have I noticed?
What have I done about it so far?
What support do I need about it?
How might student-centred strategies and the IB learner profile support with combating wider trends of student loneliness?
Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!
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