Educating in Nature Ch 12 On well-being On well-being I want to discuss physical well-being primarily. In adults well-being is often associated with stress and mental discomfort or worse, whilst these are issues for young people, in terms of school education perhaps well-being is associated more with physical wellness. To begin with I want to discuss food. People are already relating the appalling standard eating habits to disease, Jamie Oliver an erstwhile chef has made a decision to make this case especially in schools. In a Jamie Oliver TED talk it amused me, whilst saddening me at the same time, when he went into a classroom and showed primary school students vegetables and asked them to name them - they couldn't. He presented what I consider a minimal position towards diet, and that minimal position is to avoid processed foods because they contain additives which damage health. Some people connect ADHD and other attention disorders with the change in diet pf the last century, a change that includes eating food with additives to suit BigFood. Whilst I consider this a reasonable connection it would be hard to prove, after all which big food company will want to fund research into how additives damage our health. Of course such research and positions should be under the guidelines of governance, but again this shows how government interests are dominated by the corporate paradigm. His minimal position also advocates lessons in which all students learn how to cook foods naturally, as a starting position I whole-heartedly agree. For young people dietary improvements can be taken further by eating whole grains, beans, fruit and vegetables - with occasional fish? Other measures can be taken to balance health, and this leads me to describing a functional relationship between health and food:- Eating healthy food -> Healthy Body I further believe in the food principles presented by Paul Pitchford in his book "Healing with Whole Foods". In his book he connects the food we eat with healing illnesses, I agree with this and I further imply the converse that the foods we eat can produce disease. If our food is not healthy then our health suffers. For young people this does not always show but as we get older obesity develops and our organs damaged from not having a healthy intake eventually become diseased. Whilst one can generalise about the relationship between healthy food and physical health, it is important to observe the impact of food; amongst other factors hereditary conditions can affect health. Sadly young people including my younger self do not see this food-health relationship often seeking immediate gratification, and it is necessary for adult guidance on this. Unfortunately our education system's guidance functions within the ambit of the food corporations (see the movie “Food Inc”) and so the guidance is not there with sufficient vehemence. Ideally students would leave school with a recognition that food and health are inextricably linked so that they learn to watch what they eat and recognise what is healthy for their own bodies. Starting with Jamie's minimal position in the canteen and his requirement that all students be able to cook, education about food needs to move onto discussion of vitamins, which foods give which vitamins, acid-alkali balance, the need for anti-oxidants and many more. Lessons could involve the design of menus that provide for all these health components, and could even look at menus that help with degenerative diseases such as cancer, diabetes and others. At present we are not informed in schools about all these alternatives although some efforts are made. However this needs to be a core element in education, a basic for all and should be one of the elements of a basic curriculum that could be the foundation of project work. We need to develop well-being in our bodies through physical exercise as well, schools originally recognise this but recently this principle has slipped as we have started to cater to errant student ways. We have allowed parents and children to collude to avoid physical exercise, this collusion is damaging to the health and well-being and needs to be avoided. Some form of daily physical exercise is advisable. One time I taught in China, and at the school I taught in every morning around 11.00am the whole school stood in rows and did 15 minutes of light physical exercise. Whilst I am not advocating this form of exercise for all schools it is certainly practical, no-one was excused. But the principle of exercise every day is one that should be implemented, led by all the teachers!! But students need to know that physical exercise is not enough. When we build up our physical well-being we also build up vitality, but this vitality can far more easily built up through other methods. This is because vitality is built up through breathing where we build up what is variously called prana chi etc. Students need to be made aware of different beneficial forms of health such as breathing methods of pranayama, the exercise forms of Tai Chi and Chi gung, and the benefits of yoga. It is these methods that adults often turn to when they feel that their well-being is suffering. And the final form of well-being that young people should be exposed to is meditation. There are various forms of meditation, and whilst it would be advantageous for students to be exposed to all that would be difficult. For meditation to be meaningful it needs to be practised and touching on each would not bring benefit. Long after this book was started mindfulness meditation became socially accepted, and I believe has been tried in some schools. The mindfulness meditation of Kabat-Zinn tends to be the most socially acceptable so it is a good starting point, but an awareness of more developing meditation methods should follow those basics. Increasingly well-being is accepted by adults as a means of coping with life or problems. To know about such is now therefore part of education’s remit so that people can become aware in life’s choices. Whilst many of the well-being teachers are following their paths people who look only towards well-being and not the path fall far short of life’s potential. Next/Contents/Previous