The Braemar Life Skills Academy Podcast

As our worlds get more complex and interconnected, the forces that can compromise our health, relationships, focus, learning, memory and motivation can easily become overwhelming. We need to develop new perspectives, habits and resources to meet these destabilizing forces, and to build resilience into our lives. Few scholars are more qualified to define and discuss Resilience in all its forms than Dr. Suna Egeryit-Madzwamuse.

Dr. Eryigit-Madzwamuse has been an Associate Professor of Human Development, Learning and Culture in the  department of Education at UBC since 2022. Before that she was a faculty member at the University of Brighton, in the School of Sport and Health Sciences. There she served as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Resilience for Social Justice at the University of Brighton since 2017. Her current research focuses on understanding the risks and protective mechanisms associated with youth development and wellbeing.

In this episode she helps to orient us in the fast-growing field of Resilience research, defining what it shares with Wellness Theory and where these two fields diverge. Our conversation revolved around the situation of young people, and especially teenagers, whose deteriorating mental health outcomes are indicative of broader deficits in our schools and cultures, the insufficiency and toxicity of online communities, and the missing meaning in their developing lives. Suna’s research and message about how communities thrive and how youth can be made to feel like they matter are not to be missed.

Some topics and resources to listen for and take further:

If you haven’t listened to our last episode click here

The BLSA podcast’s primary objective is to look clearly and honestly at the situation of young learners in today’s education climate, and to ask what can be done to improve their personal wellbeing and learning outcomes. We can think of no better guest to help us move towards this objective than Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer.

In addition to being a kind, smart and charismatic conversation partner, Dr. Shaffer is an educator, learning coach, resilience consultant, wellness writer, and public speaker. She has recently taken on the new role of Director, Office of Student and Academic Services (OSAS) in the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University.

In this episode, Dr. Shaffer helps us to look more clearly and compassionately at the ways that humans learn, the obstacles that can prevent us from doing so, and the roles that nature and personal wellbeing can play in our reception and retention of new knowledge. Young or old, wherever you are, if you’re interested in learning better, this episode is not to be missed!

And if you’re intrigued by Deena’s #LearnThat project, you can record your own “learn that” story of “what was the hardest thing you ever had to learn and *how* did you learn that?” and email your 60sec videos to [email protected]

A few of the stand-out programs, references and quotes to look out for in this episode:

 Programs

Awakened Learning – Strategies to Learn and Live Well

@AwakenedLearning (Instagram)

TMU’s Portage Program

Assignment Calculator example

References

Erich Fromm – Biophilia

E.O. Wilson – Consilience

Dacher Keltner – The Science of Awe

Johann Hari – “Stolen Focus” and “Lost Connections”

Quotes:

“That’s a linear story made out of a non-linear life. It’s a lot messier than it is ‘wow’”.

“What are the Health Determinants of Learning?”

“We can be not just both, but all.”

“Prioritize the Relational.”

“The body is all the way there with you.”

“Be 15 things when you’re introduced”.

“It’s not simple, but it’s interesting”.

“I’m a late-onset learner”

If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here

Kate Mossop, Long Pham and Martha Nguyen – Community

Episode Guests:

• Kate Mossop: Director, Community Programming

One of the things most educators learn early in their careers is that the school is not an island. It is a nexus that connects the families, organizations, natural environment, values and history that comprise the culture in which it resides. If the stability or health of one of these suffers, the whole network suffers, and must martial resources to support the flagging member.

Different communities have different nexuses; locations where their various subjects, interests and expressions meet. Sometimes these forces conflict. Sometimes they combine. At our best, we find compromise and coordination between them. But the interaction often relies on the quality of the space provided for it. These spaces come readily to mind: parks, town halls, pubs, sites of worship, and the afore-mentioned schools that most of us grew up in. In the early 20th century, the value of spaces like these was made explicit when Community Centres began to appear in the north-eastern U.S. (and maybe it’s not so coincidental that the first of these were hosted in school buildings). Since then, the presence of Community Centres in even small towns and villages has become nearly ubiquitous.

It’s a real joy, and a lesson in humanity, to speak with the folks who give their time, energy and care to the operation of these centres. Listening to people like Kate, Long and Martha talk about the truly dizzying range of services, resources and spaces they offer our community is both humbling and inspiring.

In this episode, we discuss how the University Settlement Community Centre in downtown Toronto strives to meet and adapt to the needs of our unique neighbourhood. The proportion of our neighbours who are newcomers and/or English-Second-Language (ESL) is larger than in most places, and the challenges they face are wide-ranging. Kate, Long and Martha spend their lives providing for these people, offering them routes to participation, contribution, recognition and, ultimately, belonging in our shared home.

Anyone interested in community-building, whether in an educational context or otherwise, will find some actionable ideas and general wisdom in this episode to help them move their community in the direction of health, interconnectedness, openness and reciprocal care.

And if you’d like to learn more about some of the specific ideas discussed in this episode, you can use the links below as your starting point:

• University Settlement Community Centre

Dr. Diana Brecher – North of Neutral

Dr. Diana Brecher is a clinical psychologist who has been working in the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Centre for Student Development and Counselling (CSDC) since 1991.  Diana’s long-standing interest and certification in Positive Psychology led to a shift in her role in 2016, whereby she started the ThriveTMU (formerly ThriveRU) initiative and co-founded the Thriving in Action program. She is adjunct faculty in the Psychology dept. and in the MBA program.

In this episode Dr. Brecher helped us to cover a range of topics that fall under the umbrella of Wellness theory, many of which are framed within the context of the recent global pandemic. Among these, we talked about the nature of Positive Psychology vs. Pathology-Oriented Psychology, the concepts of Languishing vs. Flourishing, the PERMA-V framework for wellness, Dr. Brecher’s Five-Factor model of Resilience, willpower strategies to help overcome procrastination, and how one might distill an awareness of one’s strengths using the example of previous challenges.

Other topics and figures referenced in the episode can be found below, linked to resources for further exploration:

• Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Founders of Positive Psychology)

Delving into the psychology of wellness, learning and personal growth can be daunting, but we’re lucky to have experts like Dr. Brecher to help guide us through the wealth of materials that are proliferating in these fields. The BLSA podcast is committed to providing as many conversations in this area as possible, and we look forward to much useful learning to come!

If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here

Miss Rebecca Bitton is an entrepreneur, educator, and mental health speaker. She has been the panelist speaker and former President of the MDAO (Mood Disorders Association of Ontario). She’s also been a panelist speaker at the OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) Work Life Balance Conference, Sunnybrook Hospital and many others.

Rebecca addresses student and client needs by leveraging their strengths, building confidence, curing overwhelm and preventing burnout.

In this episode, Rebecca unpacks the concepts of overwhelm and burnout, two expressions of what is increasingly understood as Chronic Stress. The conversation focusses on definitions, causes, symptoms, consequences, and a variety of solutions available to help anyone heal from these conditions.

Especially as our students head into assessment periods, it is crucial that we know how to identify the indicators of inordinate, toxic stress in their lives, and to be able to intervene effectively. It could mean all the difference for an aspiring student in an increasingly complex world. We hope you find this episode useful in your ongoing efforts to care for your students and create positive change in their lives!

If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here

Nike, Lucy, and Moritz – Deutsche Education

It’s always enlightening to be around people with a different cultural background than oneself, getting a daily sense of how your attitudes, values, expressions, assumptions and identities compare with theirs. One of the countries that Braemar regularly welcomes students from is Deutschland, known to many of us as Germany. And this year we’ve been lucky to be able to compare our Toronto culture with those of our German students Nike, Lucy and Moritz.

Each of these young people brings an energy and a maturity to their academic lives which can impress and even intimidate those of us who work with them. They are remarkably outgoing, well-spoken, enthusiastic, healthy and motivated. We sat down with them for a podcast conversation to dive deeper into their previous experiences growing up and going to school in Germany, and comparing their academic system with our own here in Canada.

As always with folks like these, the conversation was lively, informed and helpful, especially for those of us looking for indications of what we might learn and borrow from the system that produced such admirable students. If you’re interested in what growing up in Germany is like, you’re sure to enjoy this episode!

 Matilde Vieira and Amir Mousavinejad – Learning through Activity

One of the most important contexts in which young people develop a sense of self and a social behaviour-set is the world of games and sport. This is often the first situation where they are able to have a say in the making (and sometimes the breaking) of rules, in the selection of groups, and in the consequences of their activities. Studies demonstrating the crucial importance of unsupervised play in early life continue to proliferate in Education scholarship, but you don’t need to be a social scientist to grasp their conclusions. Play is our first practice for autonomous socializing, community-building, and competing in public, and should be regarded with the same seriousness that we treat the other academic disciplines with.

This fact becomes clear as soon as you start talking to young athletes like Matilde and Amir. These two teenagers, one from Portugal and the other from Iran, came to Toronto alone and immediately found themselves surrounded by unfamiliar people and ideas. But where others may have succumbed to the forces of Culture Shock and suffered the alienation and torpor that go with it, these two have used sport as an avenue to identity, health, community and confidence. Today, they are recognized as caring friends, successful students and influential leaders in our school.

Check out this episode to learn more about how games and sport can transcend the barriers that divide us and inform a purpose-driven life no matter what level we play at!

Mr. James Olsen is an experienced educator in the fields of business and health studies. In the years he’s spent guiding students at Braemar, his leadership in these areas, both in and outside the classroom, has led to the development of some of our most dynamic programming.

Among his many initiatives, James has spear-headed the creation of a student Entrepreneur’s Society which assists students in the development of personal business and product ideas, and a Fitness Club that helps students develop their physical fitness in an informed, collaborative space.

This episode features discussion of a range of topics related to personal development and the role that school plays in helping teenagers find health, identity and purpose. Whether you’re an educator, administrator, parent or student, you’re sure to find something to build on here!

The education experience at Braemar is made vibrant and impactful by its teachers, its community, and especially by its culturally diverse student body. Each year, students from dozens of countries come together in our downtown Toronto location to encounter one another in a space that encourages discovery and an appreciation of differences.

This episode’s guests exemplify this experience perfectly: two young gentlemen with vastly different backgrounds who have nonetheless discovered common ground beyond the coincidence of their shared nickname, Sacha. Their discussion sheds light on the cultural dynamics at play every day in our school and in our city, and on how young people can adapt and benefit from new settings and challenges regardless of where they come from.

We’re proud to introduce students like these, and to highlight their insights and expressions as representing the best of Braemar’s values and purpose. And we look forward to featuring more interviews with our wonderful students in the future!

In this episode we meet Miss Nicole Booyse, an experienced educator who moved from South Africa to Canada and became the Artistic Director of Braemar College. Nicole is a visual artist, musician and teacher who has transformed the art program at Braemar into a vibrant, passionate space where students can find the freedom and care necessary to explore and express their personal identities.

In our conversation, we focused on the concept and theory of “Creativity”: what it is, what is does for us, why it’s necessary, and how schools can be a place where it is encouraged and nurtured. We also discovered a mutual source of inspiration in the work of Ken Robinson, discussing his legacy as an education reformer, and the implications of his work showing how creativity is often destroyed and lost in our adolescent years.

Nicole’s approach to her students and her insistence on the sovereignty of the creative, artistic space will be an inspiration to all who listen. Enjoy!