School and Community Fall 2023

Empowering Minds: Meeting the Need for Mental Fitness in Education BY SHAWNNA MATTESON, COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS A favorite bit of advice that I have acquired throughout life has been to teach others what you wish you had known. As a teen in the early 1990s, I began to struggle with anxiety. The most obvious issue to my parents was my anxiety over making phone calls. I’ve never enjoyed speaking on the phone, but intensely loathed the effort it took to call a stranger for any reason, like ordering

pizza. This manifested itself one evening when I wanted pizza for dinner. My mother, thinking she was sly, said, “If you place the order, we can have pizza.” Mom knew I would not be willing to place that phone call, even for my favorite food. Luckily, it was easy to convince my boyfriend to place the call.

Though this is a simple example of one way that anxiety began to affect me, it became more serious over time. Like many people with anxiety, I developed tension headaches and neck pain. I also began having recurring dreams about high-anxiety situations and loved ones dying. I coped, rather poorly, with what I thought were typical life struggles. Binge eating high caloric foods late at night, avoiding stress inducing tasks, conversations and decisions became regular habits. All of which only served to cause more stress and feeling like I was fundamentally incapable of managing what everyone else seemed to easily do. I developed a harsh and critical inner voice, chastising myself for my perceived failings and character flaws. Had I known then what I know now, I might have avoided over two decades of cyclical anxiety, depression and significant weight gain. My mission to spread mental fitness knowledge began in the isolated days of the pandemic in the fall of 2020 while teaching remotely. During what I fondly call the “before times,” I was aware of only some of the mental health problems of my students, though I am sure there were people suffering silently as I had during my time in school. That fall, however, I became aware of far too many of my kids in crisis. For the first time while teaching honors students, I had kids skipping exams, missing class and failing grades in the double digits. Encouraged by my district administration, I began to address aspects of the advanced placement psychology curriculum. Using mini lessons in advanced placement World Studies, I reached out to kids who were hurting. I understood the anxiety and depression the students were displaying, and I knew they badly needed the knowledge that I wish someone had shared with me as a teen. In the years since I first began the mini-lessons, the need for them has been reinforced as our nation is faced with a

mental health crisis in our youth. When experiencing distressing

emotions, kids generally seem to think in one of two ways. The mindset typically displays as either “Everybody goes through this, I’m not special,” or “No one else feels this way and nothing can be done about it.” Both thought processes lead to isolation and, for some, acts of desperation. It is vital that we help adolescents gain a sense of agency over their emotional responses to their environment. One way or another, kids will find a way to cope. They need information to ensure their methods of coping are healthy and lifelong rather than maladaptive and short-term. This is just as important for thriving kids as for those who struggle. Periodically throughout the year in all of my courses, we spend five to ten minutes at the start of class on a specific topic of prevention education related to mental fitness. I explain to students, “Today will be the beginning of a series of lessons, scattered across the school calendar, to address a knowledge and skill set which I call mental fitness. It is a state of well-being and having a positive sense of how we think, feel and act.” The first lesson explains that mental fitness is like physical fitness - the more you practice it, the stronger you are. The better you get at doing it, the more it helps. Just like how people prefer various ways of exercising, some tips to practice mental fitness might be preferable or more beneficial to different people. Mindfulness and mindful meditation are very helpful for me, but someone else might prefer to journal or go on a hike. The lessons have addressed topics such as anger, time management, stress, sadness and even difficult social conversations. Usually, any given lesson will be a singular graphic or slide that is

Junto Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership

32 | FALL 2023 S&C