camandkatepodcast

Cam and Kate discuss the need for more mental health support in schools. They share personal experiences of struggling with social anxiety and the lack of support they received. They believe that educators should receive training in mental health and that schools need more funding for resources. They also discuss the importance of inclusive classrooms and providing additional guidance to students who need it. They suggest priming sessions and having aides in the classroom to help students grasp lessons. They share personal experiences of being separated from their peers and the negative impact it had on their confidence. Welcome to Cam and Kate, brought to you by Tito's Handmade Vodka. We have no business being in this business, but you can't fail if you don't quit. Born in a shack off the highway on Raven Austin, we bottle Death Spirit and Catherine Copper like a son. For 25 years, we've told friends and shared the joy. You made us who we are. There's more than life, there's spirit in this bottle. My name is Kate. And I'm Cam. In this episode, we will be sitting down to have a casual discussion on the necessity of different resources in educational settings. We take a look at not only the current resources put in place to help students, but also different initiatives we would like to see implemented on them in the future. This includes both mental and educational support systems. Different resources like guidance counselors, writing and math centers, and mental health support will all be covered. One angle we will look at is how these resources are failing students and not providing them with enough support to succeed. You'll be able to analyze the effectiveness of current programs used by educational institutions. We will expand on how its use can benefit a larger quantity of students. Meanwhile, the resources we feel are lacking will be criticized and expanded on to discover how those things can be better. Okay, I think we should talk about how I think that like students need more mental health support in schools. Yeah, I think good mental health results in academic success. There's been like a couple projects where I'm honestly really struggled because when I was younger, I used to have like really bad social anxiety. So I never was comfortable like speaking in front of a class or like presenting or like doing like talking things in classes. And there was this one project I remember I had to, have you ever heard of an I.O.? No, what's that? It's like in English, you have to do, it's basically like this, you have to do like a ten minute thing, but it's like formatted in an essay. So you have to like talk in an essay format in ten minutes. It's recorded and it's sent to like, not the school, but it's like a higher organization of the school. So you can get back a good grade for I.B. testing. I don't know if you have the I.B. program, but like whatever. So I had to do that and I remember like I had everything down, I had the essay, like everything was fine. And then the day before, I had soccer practice and I literally couldn't go because I was freaking out crying, like hysterically crying for like two hours. And I was like I can't do this, I can't do this, like I can't literally just sit in front of my teacher and talk for ten minutes, like that's insane. But like I genuinely could not do it. So I had to email, my brother was like you need to email him because he used to watch me sit there and cry for two hours. And then I emailed him and my teacher was actually really sweet about it. He was like, yeah just let me know, like we can do it tomorrow if you're up to it, but we can also do it like whenever you feel like you can do it. And so I was like okay. So I went to the school and I was like I can do it, like it's fine, I'll be able to do it. And I walk into the room, guess what happens? What? I start crying, immediately. And my teacher starts laughing. Isn't that horrible? It's like actually traumatic. But like I feel like I think that like people should give more support. Like my teacher was really kind about it, but like imagine I had a teacher that didn't believe in it. Or like I genuinely struggled and I wasn't able, like I couldn't overcome it. Yeah, I think that's a common thing with a lot of students who don't feel comfortable sometimes talking with their teachers or are nervous to like interact with them. And I think that a lot of times students just need like higher self-esteem. I think a lot of students don't get nervous. I mean we've seen in other researches that students with positive self-esteem have high academic performance. Yeah, I think some of it goes back to how teachers should be reinforcing like students when they're younger to help boost their educational confidence. Yeah, educators need more mental health training, I think, especially for when kids are young. It's not only just how to help students and make them feel better about themselves, but it's also identifying students that need help. And this shouldn't just be like an educational thing. A lot of it is identifying students that need mental health support just like we talked about before. I think it's really important that educators take a positive and preventative approach rather than just like responding to students that are having behavioral issues. Yeah, I honestly like the only issue that I think there is is that like teachers just don't know how to go about doing it. Yeah, there's this idea of a multi-tiered support system where teachers recognize different levels of intervention that's needed to address different levels of student support. In these models, there's like comprehensive school mental health systems, positive behavioral intervention, and then like interconnected system framework. And all of them address different levels of needs that students have. Some of these are like, some of them can just be like educational problems where you're struggling in the classroom. Others are they're acting out. And what happens is like the teachers are able to recognize this and then find that student the necessary help so that this doesn't become an issue later on in their education. I feel like for that like they'd have to have training and I just don't think that teachers want to go through that. And like wouldn't it cost more money for the schools? Yeah, and I mean that could be a whole different discussion of schools that, I mean schools need more funding for stuff like mental health so that teachers can have the proper training. Especially for the young kids because that's where it's all starting. And these students really need support educationally and mentally so that they can become well-rounded students. Yeah, all that is really important in the effort to expand student mental health resources. But we are running out of time in this segment, so here's another sponsor from one of our partners. Okay, Bradley, tell the class about your holidays. Yeah, it was really good. My dad built us a new f***ing kitchen. It's got wooden f***ing benchtops and those stupid f***ing self-closing drawers. There was a dishwasher that was a real p***y. And even a f***ing breakfast bar. My mom thought Dad was nuts. Get a kitchen installed without teaching your kids new words. Visit ikea.com.au We can plan, deliver, and install the whole f***ing thing for you. Alright, thank you IKEA. So now we're going to move on to a different conversation and this one's going to be about additional in-classroom guidance. Yeah, some students need more guided help than others in the physical classroom setting. Yeah, there is this thing I saw on priming sessions. What are priming sessions? They're like, basically you review with the students the class material before the class starts so that they get like an idea of what is going to be happening during the class instead of just throwing the information at them. Yeah, I think another thing that I, not only are priming sessions important, but when the teacher explains something to the class, I think it's important for the students that need extra help to then get it like broken up to them after the explanation too. But I feel like that's the point of an aid. Yeah, and it could be an aid that's the one doing it. So, I mean, maybe there just needs to be more aid in the classroom rather than having just one teacher and 25 students. Maybe there needs to be somebody in that classroom that can go around and help the students that may not have fully grasped the idea of the lesson. Yeah, I think students that receive their help, it should be inside the classroom setting rather than being separated from their peers. Yeah, because I remember when we were like kids and so much of the time, there would be a lesson given to the students and then a group of kids would be taken away from the classroom to then have it worked on at a deeper level. But, I mean, these kids need to stay in the classroom. They can get the necessary help in the classroom while still being able to interact with their peers just like all the other students do. Yeah, there was a study that showed that students in inclusive settings showed more improvement in their work than students with intellectual disabilities in a non-inclusive setting. I actually have a personal experience with this because when I moved from South Carolina, I went from really bad education to New Jersey's education, which is really good, and they ended up separating me from my English classes because I wasn't as good as the other students. Do you think that may have negatively impacted you, being away from the rest of the class? Did it make you feel a certain type of way? Well, not at the time, but I've noticed, like, my... like, going back to the confidence thing, my confidence in English is horrible, so I just automatically think anything I write or, like, I can't read... I mean, I can't read, but it's just, like, the confidence in myself is just so low that I just feel like I can't do it. And that was a result of, you know, being separated from your class? Yeah, I think most of it, honestly, just comes from that. Yeah, and that's why it's so important to keep kids in the same class and just help them through it while not separating from everybody else. Yeah, I agree. I think this is a good place to stop and hear another ad from one of our partners. It's O'Rewards Member Appreciation Month at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Stop in today and check out store-wide savings plus our double points on over 225 items. It's our way of saying thank you. If you're not already a member, sign up today during O'Rewards Member Appreciation Month. It's fast, easy, and free. O'Reilly Auto Parts. Better parts, better prices every day. O-O-O-O'Reilly Auto Parts O'Reilly Auto Parts Okay, so we've talked about student mental health and in-classroom guidance. Now I think we should switch it over to educational services. Students need to start using the educational resources available to them in order for them to perform better academically. Oftentimes, students avoid educational services even when they are available. There are several reasons they might do this. There was one study that showed law students or ask for help too late. This is sometimes because they've been successful in academics without any aid and want to continue to push through it. And then secondly, any difficulties that students had in prior courses were easily overcome with just a little bit more effort. And then there's also the idea of pride where students don't want to seek help on material because they think everyone else understands it and they're too embarrassed to ask. Yeah, we actually ran a survey asking students and if they haven't, why they haven't gone. And the results were kind of what we expected. For example, one student said they haven't been desperate enough to go yet. Another student said that they don't like getting help. And that plays into what we said previously about pride. A lot of times, when resources are available, students don't use them simply because they're too embarrassed. Other times, students do not use resources because they don't know how to find them on their own. There is one study that had three online classes and one of them didn't have any resources at all or any class information posted. The second one had just the slides posted for the class and then the third one had the slides and then the teacher created a group chat with all the students so that they could communicate. So I assume that the group with the most resources had the most success? Yeah, the third class did better academically which just goes back to how the school should provide them with more resources. I think what this shows us is that students work a lot better when they have the opportunity to collaborate with other classmates. This is why there shouldn't be punishments for students who want to work with their peers both outside and inside the classroom on assignments and homework. Well, what resources do you use? Well, school resources I don't usually take advantage of. I know here we have both the Q and the W Center which can help students with their math and their writing. I've never been to either of them but I've been to office hours a couple of times which is helpful but I think the most helpful thing for students is just finding other people in the class and studying with them. That's oftentimes what helps me succeed the most. Yeah, I've actually used the Q Center and it's not like very helpful but it's not that bad because they show you how to do it but they don't really like explain it. They just like show you the math to get there but they don't explain how you get there. Yeah, but at least that's something because a lot of times you don't have anything. Yeah, I mean it wasn't a bad idea to go there in general but like I don't think I'd ever... Yeah, I think students need to start using these resources more. Yeah, like you said I think it's really important that students meet new peers and reach out to them to create study groups. Yeah, if you're unwilling to use the resources your school offers you or they're not offering the correct stuff the next best thing is to just find people that are in your class and create resources for yourself. Overall, you do not need to struggle alone and there are always resources available for you. With that being said, here is our final sponsor from one of our partners. Dinner, dinner, dinner. Every day you have to think of what's for dinner. Well now Subway has a solution that is sure to please every person you have to feed for that last meal of the day. It's called Dinner Tonight. Every day after 4 p.m. Subway is offering a Dinner Tonight special which includes 2 regular 6-inch subs, 2 bags of chips and 2 21-ounce fountain drinks all for just $11.99. This offer is available all day long on Sundays. Subway of Columbia, eat fresh. As we near the conclusion of our episode it is important to reflect on what we have covered. Within this episode we have covered the importance and necessity of many educational resources including mental health support, in-classroom guidance and out-of-classroom educational services. We would like to thank our sponsors as well as those who participated in our survey. See you next time on Cam and Kate. My name is Kate. My name is Kate. Wait, do they have to go through training for that? Yeah, I agree. Are you fucking kidding me? Don't forget to listen to our next episode and shop our merch. Bye!