This is an edited version of a comment I added to a blog post by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey about a "Culture of Health".
In a culture of health, one root of the vision begins in public schools.
[Associated Press photo]
Last week, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey shared a vision for "A Culture of Health". It's a vision that requires a "seismic shift" in perspective and values, to be built grassroots from the ground up, she said. Success will result in a "society where everyone has the opportunity to lead a healthy life," she explained.
Public schools have immeasurable potential for building a grassroots culture of health, particularly in urban centers where children live in areas of high density. Public schools are a neighborhood center, dealing day-in, day-out with the majority of children in the community. They are, in effect, a 'clinic', seeing outpatients extremely regularly.
In context, the current public education paradigm is failing across our country, most noticeably in urban centers. We also require a major paradigm shift in urban education. Incremental adjustments are like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The customer -- the child -- must come first, even for those who insist on a charter 'business' approach.
Successful businesses start with the consumer. If the child as consumer comes first, then the major shift in the urban education paradigm is to deal with the whole child, starting with chronic or complex trauma and its neurobiological effects.
To-date, the issue of childhood trauma is ignored. We have been simply working for incremental advances -- charter schools, Common Core, more technology, standardized testing, curriculum tweaks, more funding, less funding, cut teacher pay, increase teacher incentives, eliminate tenure, zero tolerance discipline, longer school days…the list goes on.
None of the above will generate the orders-of-magnitude improvements we all seek. None address the injured child.
Public education and the healthcare system should walk together so that children can flourish.
The public education paradigm will need to make some key strides in accountability for whole child health if it is to be successful in its educational mission. It needs a more explicit, accountable healthcare perspective for the millions of children who enter the educational “clinic” each day. The healthcare system will need to take accountability for the whole child also, beyond nutrition, beyond dental care, beyond immediate physical health today or this week. The children will be regularly at the education ‘clinic’ for 12+ years.
Imagine the synergistic possibilities on our way toward a culture of health!
Presently, the largest "whole child" issue confronting urban educators is captured at the intersection of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the neurobiology of the developing child’s brain. ACEs injure brain development and function. The children are not “sick”, or “bad” children, they are Injured. ACE incidence has been shown to be huge. No educational system can successfully make the gains we all desire while ignoring the health impacts or educational impacts of childhood trauma.
Public education systems could greatly benefit with help from the healthcare system in effective, efficient screening of all incoming 'customers' for ACE scores, and ultimately treating the injuries. We will all also benefit from cross-education: What is an ACE? How do ACEs impact developing children’s brains and school-wide practices? How do we effectively respond to ACE symptoms and defenses in the classroom and across the campus, and community, without causing further injury?
This is not about blame. No matter what, the injured children are coming through the door every day. The educational mission cannot be achieved solely via academic effort. We will lose. We are losing.
There are so many legitimate aspects to the failure in urban education that we miss seeing the whole child, and the impact of chronic urban trauma, the "Failure Elephant" in the room.
When we ignore the whole child, we ignore the key variable.
It renders analyses impotent at best, and destructive at worst.
Instead, we must exhort each other to a much more complete, healthy vision!
More about this issue in Failing Schools or Failing Paradigm?
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