Discovery College’s journey with Visible Wellbeing, in partnership with Professor Lea Waters of the University of Melbourne, is leading us to create and recognise practices that develop wellbeing for ourselves and others. As part of this journey, we are going to use The Explorer to offer regular insights into wellbeing practices across the College. This week’s focus is Mr Shih’s Y13 class, using the practice of ‘See, Hear, Feel’ to make wellbeing visible.
As is understandable for many of our Y13 students at this time of the year, Mr Shih’s class arrived in his room and he saw and heard indicators of stress and anxiety. The students reported this also when invited to give a snapshot of how they felt at that moment:
Mr Shih’s class are studying a novel by Haruki Murakami and Mr Shih decided to take his class outside into the sunshine to further their learning. Here there were two parallel Learning Intentions, one of which was about understanding the use of surrealism in Murakami’s text and the other was about understanding how paying attention to the world around us through ‘See, Hear, Feel’ can open us up to positive experiences and help us to manage emotions. As students studied outdoors, Mr Shih led the class to recognise what they saw, heard and felt about the environment around them. The students…
…saw no walls around them, seeing and appreciating the green plants and the blue sky instead
…heard birds singing and Jazz music playing from the lower floors
…felt the warmth of the sun
The impact of this experience was that, when students finished their lesson, their perceptions of their own feelings had changed.
Mr Shih and his class show us that by opening ourselves up to see, hear and feel our surroundings, we become open to positive thoughts and experiences and are better equipped to manage our emotions.