One of the positives to come from Covid is that people are increasingly comfortable sharing their own mental health challenges, so creating space for others to share, to seek and offer support. We are all on the mental health spectrum. None of us are bulletproof.
Now, as to the term “on the spectrum“, I have seen this used more and more in education around various learning, developmental and behavioural challenges faced by students in education. Unfortunately, I have also noticed some judgements creeping in (more from parents and other students than teaching staff, for sure) by looking at anybody who is “on the spectrum” as being different, as somehow not “fitting in”. This is truly unfortunate and unhelpful. Imagine a student in secondary school. Teenage years are challenging enough in trying to “fit in” without being labelled and pathologised in this way.
However, the term “on the spectrum” can be used differently and with a different and positive energy, one of being open and understanding so to seek to support, to find solutions.
Where we can use the idea of a “spectrum” to represent, using the metaphor, a rainbow of colours, a variety of brightnesses, we can understand how each child is different and, while one child may be greatly challenged in one area in learning the “standard” way, that same child may also often be truly gifted in other ways, something we can seek to understand if we truly recognise that we are all “on the spectrum”.
Earlier this week I introduced the work of Sketchplanations in: “Allowing the visual to explain“. In today’s post, I hope I painted a story with words. The visual above is this week’s “Sketchplanation” and I hope it further anchors the positives we can take from utilising term “spectrum” and working with it.
Remember, we are indeed all “on the spectrum” and a leadership thought. Whenever you look at a “one size fits all” approach, anything from “hey, everyone would love to be on a zoom Christmas party this year!” to “let’s all go back to the office five days per week when this is over”, or “let’s all work from home five days per week when all this is over”, please do look to adopt the spectrum approach to considering the optimum solution or solutions both for your team and the individuals in it.