The essential value of other professions
Why the help and advice of professionals who have trained in different disciplines and traditions are so important to any good school.
Teachers and school leaders have a great deal to learn from members of other professions who work with children. During my teaching career I have been significantly influenced by psychotherapists, opthalmic opticians, counsellors, occupational therapists, educational psychologists and music therapists with whom I have worked.
Their methodologies have their own conventions and will be based on a different range of research and experience. This will lead them to see things in a different way so they will analyse often difficult situations according to a different set of reference points.
This, of course, is why we need them, especially when difficult situations arise and a child’s progress is being hampered by factors which we simply can’t fathom as teachers. Successful referrals to specialists for matters great and small can have a transformative effect on a child’s life.
I was reminded of this when reading two articles in this month’s ITM by psychotherapist Erika Neil who writes about ‘Havening’ and occupational therapist Dave Jereb who asks us to think about the concepts of ‘dysregulation’ and ‘sensory diets’. The techniques they use have been developed in a different professional context to our own as educators.
If new approaches to meeting the needs of children are systematic and well-researched and we keep an open mind, we might just find answers to problems that we have hitherto regarded as intractable.
And to all those professionals who work in our schools: thank you for the difference you make. We couldn’t do what we do without you.
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