Hi Everyone:
It was wonderful to see some familiar faces and get to know others of you this past Friday evening and Saturday. We clearly have a great group of HEALers with a diversity of backgrounds and interests!
Hopefully our start to the HEAL MEd put you at ease.
Let me now go over some of the course assignment details and class preparations.
1. It's good to see the Blogs being set up. I trust this exercise provides a meaningful and enjoyable way of highlighting your HEAL MEd journey. It is also a particularly useful way of us getting to know one another better. We'll provide some prompts for Blog entries along the way, starting with the initial ones that Jacqueline sent you [repeated here):
First blog prompt:
Write a short biography about yourself. Be creative.
What interests you? Why did you enroll in the HEAL program?
What is your understanding of health and the mind/body relationship?
What would you like to gain from this experience?
What will you contribute?
If your postcard is in a digital format, or easily photographed, then it can be posted on the blog, too, although some of you will have images that do not have copyright clearance or text that is too personal. So I leave the uploading of the postcard to you.
We'll discuss next time we meet how the blogs can serve the requirements of the "Active living: practices and reflections" assignment.
2. I've attached the names and email addresses of those of you who signed up for each of the Class Presentations/Seminars that pertain to Parts Two, Three, Four, Five/Six of the *Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives* text.
Each group should plan for a 1.5 hour time slot (with a bit of flex) that we will schedule on the respective Saturday, say, between 10:30-12:00. Work as a group as much as possible in planning and presenting an overview of the key topics and main issues, and pose pertinent questions for whole class and group conversations. Where possible, look for illustrative material, activities, simulations, and so on, that enable the cohort members to really engage with the "social determinants" under consideration. In preparation, we will all have perused the relevant part of the text, however the group members taking on their chosen part of the text will have given it closer attention.
I suspect that, as with this past weekend when my timing of group conversations was a bit skimpy, we will find that these seminars/presentations will easily occupy our allotted time!
The important thing in these Class Presentations/Seminars is that we at least get to the question of "So what?" Awareness of "the social determinants of health," extended to wider appreciation of the "ecological determinants" and the very provocative and challenging consideration of "the determinants or indigenous peoples' health in Canada" can have us wonder if "health for all" will ever be achieved. Thus it is important that we always raise the "So what?" question as one, not of resignation, but of hopeful, localized action and personal-professional agency. Within an expansive, troubling awareness of health as a quality of life that is so differentially accessible, we need to ask "So what now? What ought we to do? How can we make a difference?" Such reflection should be included in the write-up that each group member submits (just to me) via email after the group presentation.
To be clear, submit INDIVIDUALLY a write-up that covers the following:
a. A one-page synopsis of the part of the Raphael text you and your group members are addressing.
In this synopsis, mention the key ideas, issues and challenges. Focus on those ideas, issues and challenges that stand out for you.
b. Some examples or illustrations from your work and wider life of the above. Indicate how you connect personally and professionally with the "social determinants" being discussed. Such connections should comprise no more than a second page.
c. And, in no more than a page, indicate possible courses of action to help turn the "social determinants of health" into "affordances" of greater well-being and enhanced quality of life for those adversely affected by "income insecurity and unemployment," "educational access," "food insecurity and inadequate housing," and "social exclusion" especially as a function of systemic colonialism. .
3. As a start on the major paper, please bring to the next class an initial draft of your "first-person description of an event, incident or encounter" that indicates or simply intimates a topic of health interest. This will be just a couple of paragraphs where you describe something that gave you pause for thought. You can draw upon something that happened recently or in the past in your professional life, or that was maybe a happenstance in your everyday life outside the work place. The point is just to start somewhere with an experience that likely holds key insights for how you regard health, wellness, quality or life, relations with others, and so on. But don't force it.
Here are some useful tips in constructing this initial narrative:
a. Write in the first-person and in the present tense. A past experience, and that's pretty much what every experience becomes, is generally more vivid when written as if it were happening now.
b. Don't editorialize or explain and don't try to hastily draw a conclusion or pinpoint an explicit meaning. Just describe the place, the event, situation or encounter as vividly as possible so that any reader or listener can put herself or himself there.
c. Include any dialogue or words said, or highlight the most poignant part of the verbal exchange (if there were in fact any words spoken).
d. Recreate the mood or tone by describing what happened in terms of any movements, gestures, and nonverbal exchanges.
e. And don't use anyone's actual name, or mention their place of work, or provide any other identifying information (unless it's a child for whom you have parental consent, or a significant other who would give it to you).
We'll work up these initial narratives to the point where you are comfortable sharing them and where you can see what health inquiries they might suggest.
4. As for the readings in preparation for our next meeting onSeptember 23 and 24, keep in mind:
Raphael: Social Determinants, Part Two: Income security and employment in Canada.
That's the focus of the Class Presentation and seminar on theSaturday the 24th.
I've listed three further readings in the course schedule. These are:
Smith & Lloyd (2006). Promoting vitality in health and physical education.
Lloyd & Smith (2005). A ‘vitality’ approach to health-related, physical education programs.
Smith & Lloyd (2007). The assessment of vitality: An alternative to quantifying the health-related fitness experience.
On Monday I'll send you the PDFs of these readings. I would suggest that those of you who are interested in matters of physical activity, especially in schools, might want to look at each of the readings, however the first one on "Promoting vitality in health and physical education" will be sufficient to prompt our discussion of vitality, embodiment, and mind-body distinctions underlying Western health education, health promotion, and health care frameworks.
And, finally, the following Youtube talk is a primer for our consideration of self-care practices on the Saturday afternoon.
Watchable: John Kabat-Zinn: Mindfulness in Education:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm-qnkclUyE
Well, that's enough from me for the moment. I hope you all had a chance to enjoy the great weather today.
Cheers,
Stephen.
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