I feel honored to have received confirmation that I will be speaking at the MEA-MFT Educators’ Conference in Helena, MT, in Oct 2016. The topic of my presentation will be “Emotional health is key to academic success”. The presentation will be based on my first book about impact of bullying on mental health. I try to make the point that teachers too have a role in maintaining a safe school environment so all children can learn and develop in a peaceful and positive atmosphere.
As stated in their website (mea-mft.org), MEA-MFT is the union created when the Montana Education Association and the Montana Federation of Teachers merged September 1, 2000.
I am excited about this opportunity since this will be my first visit to the state of Montana. However, more importantly this will be my first speech in front of a teachers’ union group. I honestly believe that in addition to their role as academic instructors, the teachers also have a key role in developing and maintaining a safe environment in schools. It is not just up to the administrators and the support staff (such as the school social workers, school psychologists, counselors, etc) to maintain a bully-free environment. In my book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder”, I give examples of teachers’ actions that had encouraged bullying from students.
The teachers need to understand that their enormous efforts in trying to educate children is wasted when a significant number of students, who could otherwise do well in academics, end up with devastating long term impacts because of bullying.