Three years after the shockwave of the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact has challenged school leaders to reflect upon structures, systems, and approaches to school life. At all levels of schooling internationally, wellbeing has appeared as a problem for school leaders to manage from a student perspective and a teacher and staff point of view. Further, an international teacher shortage is rapidly approaching. Is it possible to have a more integrated approach to wellbeing education? While there have been advances in the past decade of research, COVID-19 has accelerated school leaders’ challenges in leading effective teams that integrate systematic and consistent evidence-informed approaches to wellbeing. As the world emerges from the pandemic, education is poised to reassess the role of wellbeing in learning and professional practice. Drawing on research from Transforming Teaching: Wellbeing and Professional Practice (2022, Springer) and Wellbeing and Resilience Education: COVID-19 and Its Impact on Education (2021, Routledge), this presentation proposes an ecological approach to wellbeing education whereby school leaders, teachers, and students interact with their environment and explore the overarching issues assessed of school leadership and governance, initial teacher education, and professional practice. It positions wellbeing education theory and developments of teacher professional practice in the geopolitical dynamics that are challenging schools and schooling.
Mathew White has taught and researched curriculum, pedagogy, teacher education, and student wellbeing; he is the author, co-author, and co-editor of six books and 54 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters. Previously, Mathew held senior roles as Acting Deputy Dean, Learning and Teaching for the Faculty and was Interim Head of the School of Education. He is a principal fellow at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. He commences the role of Deputy Dean, International, for the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law, and Economics at the University of Adelaide in July 2023. Before joining academia, Mathew was an English and French teacher and senior leader in schools.
