Mental Health NOT Illness

Dr. Carney and Mental Health, May 11, 2015 Calgary

As a great follow up to the great job the students/staff did in organizing our mental health week at Centennial High School, I attended a seminar with Dr. Carney, who currently works with school boards in Ontario on mental health.  

“Resilent, active, flourishing”  are his themes for successful human development.  I asked him, what would the ideal education system look like?  His immediate response was that teachers should be  human developers first and academic teachers secondly.

When you ask anyone about mental health, they usually describe mental illness.  This is why there still needs to be more conversations about mental health.

The following links are those that were introduced, mentioned, or spontaneously arrived at over the course of the seminar: (one is not like the others). 

A must watch Shawn Achor: Ted talk. 90% internal & 10% external

http://www.google.ca/#q=shawn+achor+ted&safe=active

followed by

Flow: 

http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow#t-82204

Standards for activity for individuals with learning challenges by CSEP.

http://www.csep.ca/english/view.asp?x=943

Positive Pyschology

http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Positive-Psychology

A paper by Scientific American that you can site, cause you say this all the time, activity promotes better health.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-exercise-really-make/

And finally a map of the brain, just wish my brain came with an app for this.

http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/informatics/relationship-viewer/

This is so cool, mapping of emotions in the human body.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/646.full.pdf

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

http://www.casel.org

“A child’s ability to learn is directly linked to their overall state of well-being and mental health, of primary concern to The Hawn Foundation and Founder, Goldie Hawn who was the visionary behind MindUP™.” (Hawn F., 2015)

http://thehawnfoundation.org/research/

For younger learners,

http://wingspanworks.com

Oh the zones of regulation “is for loading and unloading only” Zappa

http://www.zonesofregulation.com/evidence.html

I shared the quote in my room with Dr. Carney who told me who the original author is, Dr. Ross Greene.  Then I found his website, changing the conversation about and with the behavioral challenging kids.  "Every learner whats to do well, if they can."

http://www.livesinthebalance.org

The advantage of being an Oiler fan for the past 9 playoffs is that there is more time to cheer for Team Canada during the IIHF World Championships.

http://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/news/canadas-national-mens-team-advances-to-quarter-finals-at-2015-iihf-ice-hockey-world-championship