Welcome Message
Educators’ happiness and wellbeing are vital to a
successful education system
I
t’s time to take a moment and
consider yourself. Yes, you.
Too often the conversation
around education and teaching
concentrates on challenges and
obstacles. Often, you are buried so
deep in your passion and dedication
to enriching your students’ learning
experience that you forget to take
care of you. It’s time to take a different
approach.
We know that happiness, well-being
and positivity have the power to
transform our lives and we use these
words to talk about high-quality
education in the hope that this
approach will spread to all schools,
universities, parents, students and of
course, you, the teacher in Dubai.
When I talk about well-being, my
meaning of the word goes beyond
just eating better and exercising. By
focusing on your well-being, you take
time for yourself, decompress, be more
mindful and subsequently develop the
social-emotional skills needed to make
you feel happier throughout your day.
Take your students as an example.
The 2015 World Happiness Report,
published in April this year, cites a study
of 200 school-based programmes that
promoted the social and emotional
skills of children. This study found that
children taking these programmes
gained about 10 percentile points in
emotional well-being and behaviour
as well as in academic achievement.
Unsurprisingly, it also found that low
well-being was linked with worse
academic performance. It makes
sense that children who for one reason
or another can’t sit still, focus, or
get along with their peers continue
to fall behind academically, while
concerned parents and teachers feel
overwhelmed, not knowing how to
intervene effectively.
Attention, empathy, forgiveness, and
impulse control all help to improve the
classroom social climate and increase
academic performance. Above all
else, the classroom, and you, become
happier. We are lucky enough to live in
a country and community which places
innovation at the heart of its long-term
strategy, and we know that happiness
and positivity are central to true
innovative practice. Making students
happier through learning is simply
to concentrate on that positivity and
mindfulness and spread its messages.
By sharing what is already working,
we know we can change the nature
of the conversation around education
and empower those in the education
community to make positive changes
themselves. This is why we came up
with the idea for our What Works
events.
Six times a year, teachers from across
Dubai’s schools come together to run
and attend workshops that showcase
the best of what they do in their
classrooms. For 2015/16, each What
Works will showcase a specific theme.
The six themes – Well-being, Makers,
SteAm, Early Years, Global Citizen
and Fusion - will deliver the latest
thinking and research in line with the
UAE National Agenda that will drive
school
improvement,
encourage
more learning and engagement,
and promote technical and creative
innovation in the classroom.
The real value of What Works is not just
in the connections made and learning
shared on the day of the events, but
in the culture change it has affected;
notably the power of positivity through
bringing schools together and creating
a community of educators.
H.E. Dr Abdulla Al Karam
Chairman of the Board of Directors
of the Knowledge and Human
Development Authority (KHDA)
255,000 students from 186 different
nationalities. This ‘internationalism’
is celebrated by our students. They
told us it makes them happy in their
schools. In fact, the number of school
students has doubled in the past 10
years and positive growth is expected
to continue for the upcoming academic
year and beyond.
It is with this positive approach that
we, the education community, seek
to improve teaching and learning in
Dubai and above all else, make more
of it by ensuring that you, as teachers,
are happy and well in your lives and
careers.
Dubai’s private education sector
is unique. Our latest figures show
that 169 schools educate more than
Class Time
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