How does Body Confidence Affect Online Learning in Today’s Pandemic?
Our webinar on Wednesday, hosted by Martin Staniforth, offered us an introduction to the Dove Self Esteem project. He offered us an invaluable insight into how the ‘Confident Me’ workshops work and how they help young people around the ages of 10 to 14 years. You can watch the webinar above. Check out the Dove Self Esteem website now for their brilliant resources.
You may wonder how self-esteem, body image and body confidence links to access to Education for All. We have talked in great detail in other posts about the digital divide and how many children cannot access distance learning because of it.
But what about the young people who do have access to online learning. How is their access to education affected by this pandemic? We may have a tendency to assume that as long as young people have access to technology and data then they will be fine. But things are never that simple. There can be many obstacles to children accessing education, and we need to listen to them to find out what these are.
Many young people in the UK are learning from home via a laptop, and engaging in ‘Live Lessons’. My son is one of them. I have often watched the teacher tirelessly trying to generate enthusiasm for a topic – to a wall of icons. I mentioned that it must be hard for a teacher to teach to a wall of icons, and asked my son why he didn’t switch on the camera. He confidently told me that for privacy and protection measures it was not allowed. 2 weeks later an email from the school requested that children switch on their cameras to better engage with the teacher. I asked my son about this again, and he told me that no way would he have a camera on for the other kids to laugh at how he looks.
Now many of us adults have been working via video conference for at least several months now, and if were to be honest with ourselves we would have to say that it is a distraction having an image of ourselves on screen all day. “Gosh I look terrible today”, “My goodness I have an annoying twitch”, “look at you yawning again”. We are now confronted with a steam of awareness about how we look and what we are doing, which we didn’t have to think about before. It can be hard for us to adjust and learn to filter it out.
It can be harder for children to do this. Their generation is more aware than ever of how a screen image can be used. They are super aware of how they appear on screen and what others can and probably will do with some one’s screen image. As we saw in the Webinar children are bombarded with images about how people should look. They are subjected to more idealised images per day than any other generation before them.
And now, they have to look at themselves on screen all day?
Is it likely that they will have a stream of negative inner dialogue about how they look? Are they likely to be able to concentrate on lessons, with their self-esteem crashing to the ground around them?
We may not be able to do much at this stage about the over saturation of Images of Perfection that they are subjected to on social media. But we can at least educate them to learn to read these images with more self- awareness. To ask the right questions that will help them to navigate the world they find themselves in.
And this is exactly what Martin does and shows us, in the ‘Confident Me’ workshop. It is the perfect antidote to the trials of how to learn online and navigate the complex world of seeing yourself on the screen as you work, and yet concentrate on a lesson. Or it will help the teachers to understand the reluctance to students switching on their cameras.
The more time young people have to spend online, the more we have to teach them how to navigate the pitfalls, as well, of course as celebrating the benefits.
There are many new areas for teachers to learn about, navigate and find solutions for, now more than ever. A fortiori, being asked to watch themselves in a screen mirror all day, surely Body Confidence is an absolute must to tackle right now.
Here is a link to the Dove Self Esteem website where teachers can find resources to run these workshops and start having an essential conversation with their students.
We hope you enjoyed this webinar, please have a look at the other webinars we are doing, and share them with your network so that your friends can benefit too.
Steve Sinnott Foundation Life Long Learning Webinars (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/the-steve-sinnott-foundation-31041261381)
Thank you for reading, please tell us in the comments bellow – how do you feel about video conferencing? What’s great about it, and what’s your challenge with it?
The Steve Sinnott Foundation • January 19, 2021
This week while out and about in Hertfordshire and we visited the British Schools Museum. We discovered the first school opened by Joseph Lancaster, was known as the ‘Poor Childs Friend”, was in 1810. It was his lifelong mission that all children regardless of their circumstances, should benefit from an education. Apparently, Joseph heard a small girl say, “Oh that I could read!” and this inspired him to create a simple education system that eventually would benefit children across the world. Joseph was the tenth son of a poor man himself from South London. His aim was to offer free education for everyone. However, it would be 93 years before the U.K. government finally made education free for all. There are still many countries today where education is still not free to access and it is certainly not compulsory for primary and secondary age pupils. Joseph’s mission really resonates with that of the Foundation, to support access to education for all. We enjoyed our visit and appreciated the tour given by two of the Museum’s volunteers, Angela and Clare. They described some of the challenges faced in the early years of formal education and shared some of the rules that teachers and students had to abide by with us.
Sparks Bristol is a collaborative community project initially envisioned by The Global Goals Centre, (GGC) more of which below. A few years ago, GGC took over an empty Marks and Spencer store and that’s how Sparks was born. Sparks is a department store with a difference, co-created by Global Goals Centre and Artspace Lifespace. On the ground floor is a huge range of shops, installations, events and more. Upstairs is a hub for local artists, it offers affordable studios as well as rehearsal and performance space. The Global Goals Centre is a Bristol-based educational charity inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs). GGC believe the SDG’s or Global Goals as they are sometimes known, can be reached, with imaginative solutions and widespread education and engagement. They work with partners to promote creative solutions and deliver ground breaking projects that work towards these ambitious goals. The Steve Sinnott Foundation supported the Global Goals Centre with seed funding when it first started over 5 years ago. This month we went to visit them to see how they are getting on and we were taken aback by the volume of work they have achieved since they started. It is amazing to see how though working together with other local community groups it has grown into the vibrant centre it is today. All of the creative projects they host are linked to the SDGs. They cover topics that tackle poverty, education, climate change, fashion recycling and upcycling, to name a few.
Spring is definitely here, daffodils, blossom and crocuses are all basking in the bright sunshine. There is still a chill in the air in the shade but it's happening and all the seeds that were sown over the last few months are coming to fruition. At the Foundation, we have been planning the year ahead and our Positive Periods and Prevention of Gender Based Violence programmes got underway this weekend in Haiti and Ghana. These projects will have a long-lasting effect on the lives of the women and girls who take part: tackling the root causes of gender-based violence and enabling girls to attend school every day when they have their period, to feel safe at school and know how to take action when they are faced with violence. These are the first of many projects planned for the year ahead as we continue to work towards Education for All children everywhere.
