First, what is mental health?
Different scholars have different analysis and understanding of this problem. Generally speaking, most scholars believe that in modern society, a mentally healthy person usually shows normal cognitive function, appropriate emotional response, sound will quality, correct self-awareness, complete personality structure, harmonious interpersonal relationship, positive attitude towards life, good social adaptation, standardized behavior and age-appropriate behavior.
1, from the perspective of development, mental health is a lifelong topic, and presents a strong stage.
That is to say, the same person's psychological development may be healthy or unhealthy at different stages of life development because of his different adaptation to the development tasks at that stage. For example, when they also enter adolescence, some children adapt well, spend it smoothly, and enter the next stage of life development healthily and happily; But some children can't adapt well, or join bad gangs, or show some bad behaviors and face psychological crisis. However, if an adolescent student facing psychological crisis gets timely and effective attention and help, it is possible to get rid of psychological crisis and embark on the road of mental health development in the subsequent development. This stage of mental health shows that mental health has strong plasticity and it is completely feasible to carry out mental health education.
2. From the perspective of differences, mental health is relative.
Mental health is not absolute and absolute. People can't be divided into two categories: mental health and mental unhealthy, and there are no people with absolute mental health. In other words, mental health is a problem that every member of our society will face. Everyone will have mental health and unhealthy aspects at the same time, but which situation is the mainstream and the degree is different. This relativity of mental health shows that mental health is all-round and it is necessary, valuable and meaningful to carry out mental health education.
Second, the necessity of mental health education
In recent years, due to various changes brought by social development, school education and children's development in China have been impacted and challenged. The survey shows that about15 children and adolescents in primary and secondary schools in China have psychological and behavioral problems of different degrees, such as weariness, truancy, stealing, lying, cheating, selfishness, willfulness, poor frustration tolerance, aggression, withdrawal, anxiety and depression. These psychological and behavioral problems not only seriously affect the healthy development of children and adolescents themselves, but also bring great troubles to the normal education and teaching work, directly affecting the completion of school education tasks and the realization of educational goals. Therefore, it is very urgent and meaningful to carry out mental health education in school education.
However, in the current school education practice, many teachers still have some misunderstandings about mental health education. They think that "mental patients" need mental health education, and it is not necessary to carry out mental health education in school education. In fact, mental health education is completely different from the diagnosis and treatment mode in psychiatry. Mental health education is mainly aimed at the needs of children and adolescents' psychological development, aiming at improving and cultivating students' psychological quality, and helping students learn how to properly and effectively cope with various pressures in real life and how to adjust their emotions. To enable students to adapt to society more effectively and actively, to adapt to their own development and changes, and to promote the mental health development of children and adolescents. Therefore, preventing problems and promoting the improvement of psychological quality are the main goals of mental health education. Mental health education is essentially the education and cultivation of psychological quality, an important aspect of promoting students' all-round development and a concrete embodiment of quality education.
Other teachers think that mental health education is mainly aimed at individual students. It is true that individual students need special education and help in their mental health development. However, as mentioned above, mental health is a problem for all employees, and it is an inevitable challenge for every student in the process of growth and development, including those students who are excellent in learning and are "good" children in the eyes of teachers, and also need mental health education. Many studies and practices have proved that sometimes these "good" students need mental health education more. Because, often due to good academic performance, the unhealthy aspects of these "good" students' psychological development are often ignored, and they can't get the attention of teachers and timely help and education. For example, some "good" students have been spoiled and praised for a long time, and their psychological endurance has become extremely fragile. If they are slightly dissatisfied, they will lose their temper. Some even take extreme measures to retaliate and even embark on the road of crime. Thallium poisoning in Tsinghua University is the best example, and some people have taken the road of suicide to face the pressure of failure and frustration. It can be seen that mental health education is not only the need of students' individual education, but also an important topic for all students and should be an important task of our school education.
Some teachers think that mental health education should belong to moral education, which is the task of student workers and class teachers. In fact, mental health education can not only play an important role in moral education, but also provide a new angle for every educator to re-recognize and treat his students and some behavioral problems, and can effectively help school teachers improve communication between teachers and students. In the past, teachers often only paid attention to students' superficial behavior problems, and quickly rose to the level of moral education to make bad behavior judgments, while ignoring the hidden reasons behind these behavior problems, including students' psychological needs. Mental health education can help teachers to know and treat students and their behaviors with a more relaxed, more accepting and understanding attitude, not only paying attention to the behaviors themselves, but also paying more attention to discovering and reasonably satisfying the basic psychological needs behind these behaviors; Don't simply judge right or wrong, but understand and educate students from a humanistic perspective. Therefore, mental health education truly reflects the respect for students, a kind of respect for "people", which is the premise of establishing a good teacher-student relationship of mutual support, understanding and trust, and is also an important topic that every teacher faces in educational practice. Therefore, mental health education is a task and requirement for every teacher, which should be recognized and valued by every teacher.
Third, suggestions on how to carry out mental health education
Developing mental health education in school education has gradually become the consensus of more and more school leaders and teachers. How to carry out mental health education in a practical, in-depth and comprehensive way in school education has become an important issue to be solved urgently by school educators and managers. According to my investigation and some related information. In recent years, especially in some big cities, such as; More than 20 primary and secondary schools in seven districts of Beijing have carried out the research and exploration of "Learning and Mental Health Education Promotion Project", and made many beneficial attempts and explorations on school mental health education from different levels such as school management, teacher training, home-school cooperation, student development and social participation, and gained some experience, which was recognized and praised by the majority of school leaders and teachers. In order to promote the development of school health education, Beijing Normal University has also set up teachers' seminars on psychological development and mental health in major cities. After more than two years of study, discussion and research with colleagues, according to our theoretical thinking and practical exploration in recent years, I put forward some suggestions for the development of mental health education in schools:
1, pay attention to the improvement of teachers' own quality.
Teachers' own quality directly determines their educational behavior. Only when teachers master scientific knowledge about the psychological development of children and adolescents, carry out education according to scientific laws and methods, and deal with students' psychological and behavioral problems and accidents in daily life can they really implement mental health education and really promote students' mental health development. For example, a student who usually performs well and is physically and mentally healthy steals money from his classmates on the spur of the moment, and then his conscience finds out that he has to find a teacher to admit his mistake. However, due to the teacher's improper handling, he was labeled as a thief. His parents' scolding, teachers' contempt and classmates' alienation made him bear a heavy psychological burden. From then on, he was depressed and gave up on himself. Not only did his academic performance decline, but he became afraid of dealing with people, and even had auditory hallucinations and hallucinations. He always suspected that others were talking about him stealing behind his back, and eventually he could not go to school and fell into a psychological crisis. Another student who had the same experience got the teacher's forgiveness when he admitted his mistake. Instead of expanding the situation, the teacher gave him the opportunity to trust and correct, and taught him the task of managing class fees. With the constant encouragement and active support of the teacher, the student finally got rid of the shadow left by the last mistake and was able to hold his head high and handle the money problem calmly. The development of other aspects has not been negatively affected, but has been promoted by the enhancement of self-esteem and self-confidence brought by teachers' understanding and trust.
It can be seen that teachers, as the main body of education implementation, their own quality plays a decisive role in carrying out mental health education. It is hard to imagine that teachers with low mental health level and lack of scientific understanding of mental health education can cultivate students with good psychological quality. Therefore, attaching importance to the improvement of teachers' own quality is the premise and guarantee to carry out mental health education in schools deeply and effectively.
2. Pay attention to the combination with school daily education and teaching activities.
At present, although many schools also recognize the importance of mental health education, it is mechanically and simply understood as curriculum education or one or two vigorous activities. Who knows, true mental health education and the cultivation of good psychological quality can never be achieved by having one or two classes or engaging in several activities every week. In fact, a lot of research and practical experience show that mental health education, like other education, needs to be combined with daily education and teaching activities in schools, and needs the consciousness and concept of "moistening things quietly"; It is difficult to cultivate good psychological quality only by limited time and space, and it also needs to be accumulated from a little practical experience in life. Therefore, the daily education and teaching activities in schools should become the main channel of mental health education. Only by infiltrating the concept and content of mental health education into teachers' daily specific education and teaching work can mental health education be truly implemented. Practice has proved that as long as teachers give full play to their initiative, initiative and creativity, encourage teachers to use their brains, pay attention to accumulation and communication, mental health education can be completely integrated into school daily education and teaching activities, and its educational effect will be very remarkable, which will also bring great promotion to school daily education and teaching activities.
3. Pay attention to practice and highlight the characteristics of activity orientation.
Research and practice have proved that the realization of mental health education depends more on the actual operation and experience of individuals in real situations. Therefore, mental health education cannot be a lecture class, nor can it just stay in words, but should go deep into life and be trained and consolidated in practice. To this end, we advocate paying attention to practice, giving students opportunities, and letting students really receive mental health education in participation and doing. Among them, the most important and direct way to realize it is to highlight the active characteristics of mental health education and integrate it into activities, which not only contains and transmits the knowledge about mental health education in activities, but also pays attention to grasping problems as an educational opportunity in daily education and teaching practice, carrying out vivid and intuitive mental health education activities, and consciously organizing students to carry out various activities to practice and experience the learned mental health education knowledge in life. Through these vivid, lively and interesting activities, students are not only given a real mental health education, but also made to realize that mental health education comes from life and is practiced in life, so that mental health education can be truly implemented.
4. Pay attention to the participation of parents and social forces and promote mental health education.
Besides school education, the development of students' mental health is also restricted by other social factors. Among them, parents are important figures in students' growth and development, and their understanding and concept of mental health education will directly affect the development of students' mental health and the development of school mental health education. This is fully reflected in the educational situation that some schools organize hand-in-hand summer camps or juvenile military schools to cultivate students' psychological quality and promote students' psychological health, and activities are spoiled by schoolbags filled with high-quality food and visits every three or two days. In addition, various social phenomena, public opinion, film and television culture, media and other social factors also directly affect the development of students' mental health and the development of school mental health education. It can be seen that mental health education is not only the task of school education, but also the task and responsibility of the whole society; Mental health education can only be really carried out if it is supported and recognized by the society. In other words, when schools carry out mental health education, they should pay attention to mobilizing the strength of the whole society and get the support and recognition of the society. First of all, they should get the support and recognition of parents. Therefore, we suggest that when schools carry out mental health education, we must pay attention to reaching an understanding with parents, break the old ideas and stereotypes that parents think that they just need to study hard through various activities and publicity, help parents establish a modern scientific concept of talents, gain parents' support and recognition, encourage parents to participate, create an environment and atmosphere in which all employees participate in and support mental health education, and carry out mental health education in a down-to-earth manner.