For the Love of teaching is a podcast brought to you by teach stata we save teachers hours each week by bringing them quality downloadable teaching resources for their classrooms to make your classroom Buzz go to teach stutter.com Our early experiences can weigh heavily upon us shaping our beliefs about ourselves and the world in which we live but it's never too late to correct a negative perception of oneself as primary teacher Ali Smith found when she overcame her childhood influences and created a life full of light love health and success for herself and her loved ones Ally's now an advocate for positive body image and health and well-being. She now writes on the chalkboard at teach stutter creating positive. Of resources for students and supporting teachers and she joins me now. Welcome Ali. Wow, what an introduction thank you. I feel so grateful to be here and what an introduction thank you very much. Yeah, well deserved you are an incredible woman and I'm so lucky to get to work with you every day. Thanks Ron. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that. I hope that my experience can Inspire others and that's really why I'm here today just to talk about how positive how positively we can move forward. Situations definitely. No, that's great. Thank you. I really appreciate you coming into the studio today to have a chat about all of these things. So we might just start right back at the very beginning a very good place to start. What were you like as a child? Hmm as a child. I was really creative and a free thinker I lived in the countryside in England in a small village called North piddle and I love the outdoors. I know North bill is such a great name how it always makes Giggle, yeah, and then yeah, I was just incredibly free. I real free spirit very creative very loving and yeah, love life love life. Yep. I can see a lot of those traits still in you now, you are a very creative person. You have an amazing energy about you that you bring to the office at each star every day. So, what did you what did you want to be when you grow up? What did you want to do with your life? Oh, well actually wanted to be a lady farmer, but I'm also a particular about my choices. I didn't really want any cows or pigs because they were too dirty. But yes, I really wanted to be a lady farmer and work outside in The Great Outdoors. And I also wanted to be a teacher. I remember sitting in my bedroom. I think like a lot of us teachers have done with a little pretend chalkboard, you know teaching my imaginary friends in my classroom. So that started pretty early to oh, wow. That is a very young calling to them. That's really lovely and now your own School experience. It was probably a little bit different. Perhaps too many. Teachers listening from Australia or elsewhere around the world. But can you tell us what that was like how the school system kind of worked in North pedal? Well, I've got some more fear Braun actually, I went to a school called Upton snodsbury first school. I'm which I think may even beat North piddle and I completed a three-tier education which meant that I completed my prep years prep to 3 at first school and then from year for I went to a middle school and then Around year 7. I went to my high school and that's where I completed my sixth form as well and Upton snodsbury first call was so tiny. I think we probably had about 25 students in the whole school. And I remember seeing a whole school photograph and people would say to me is was that your your class? I don't know. No that was the whole school. So it was really tiny and really intimate and in a beautiful little village. No. Oh that sounds so gorgeous and such a lovely little Community. How did Growing Up in a small community shape? Or you know, it was it was great in that, you know, we were very sheltered from a lot of things but also it didn't really prepare me for the real world. And I think that's where I sort of fell into some difficult times because I don't feel that I was really equipped with the life skills and their resilience that I needed to actually survive when I went to my next school. So it was lovely. I had a few really close friends, but I lost those friendships when they moved to different schools and that did Have a negative impact on me. I guess I felt those feelings of loneliness quite early on in my primary is yeah, when people do move on after you've made such a close Bond or Connection in a small as small environment. I think that cat can I intensify the friendships because there's fewer people and you become so much closer because it's a small community. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree and I think especially every other kind of person that tends to put all your eggs in one basket, which is me. I'm not really a big group person I tend to Make really close friendships with a few people for me. That's more important because I'm all about being real and establishing real relationships and even early on I was like that I found big groups difficult. So I'd make very close friendships. And then when they would break I'd start to wonder why that was happening and as a small child, you knew you think it's your fault something that you're doing wrong, perhaps. Yeah Ali, you know yourself, so well like you are a person who really you've spent a lot of time putting consideration into Who You Are As a person and I know that when you talk about yourself and your choices and your preferences in life, you're very assured in who you are. So you come across as a very confident person at an early age though. You did encounter some troubles with body image self image may be self esteem as well. You know, I'm 40 years old now and when you talk about, you know me being a confident person. It's really has been a huge Journey. But even back then there was that pressure coming from social media to so I think I feel so strongly about it now because the students that we're teaching and ourselves as teachers are constantly being bombarded with these images of the way. We have to look or a perceived narrative coming in telling us that we should look a certain way. Yeah. Definitely. I think you've hit a really good point there, which is that body image self-esteem all of these things that are connected to it. Adolescent or a Young Person's well-being have always been a sensitive issue as people grow up and there was always kind of outside influences and outside pressures, but we're navigating. This world now is Teachers parents and women ourselves that it's at a new level of pressure with things like Instagram and you know things like hashtag thinspiration stuff like that. I wonder you and I both have Daughters and sons as well and I mean it's not confined to female kids that this could be an issue but watching our kids grow up in this generation and our students have these pressures. It is a concern as a solutely and I think it's really really important and this is why I wanted to come in and talk with you today is that we as teachers are role models. We need to model to our students our own positive self-image our own positive body image and we need to be aware that it's a really important issue right now and that it is part of our job to look out for students who perhaps are experiencing some negative emotion in this particular area, but you also need to be really strong in our own resolve to be the change. We need to actually be the change and be the teachers who talk positively about ourselves and discourage sort of appearance based conversations and really Encourage our students to have a healthy relationship with food and exercise and to steer away from the social pressures that they're under because they're bigger than ever that you know, they far exceed what I had to deal with when I was young but it got to me then, you know what I mean? So it's like if this is something that we really have to address and perhaps if you had had that support from a teacher that would have changed at the outcomes for you earlier than you having to do that work yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Solutely and it's taken me a long time on this journey to be really clear on what I feel like my purpose in life is and you know, it sounds a bit, you know heavy perhaps to talk about purpose but I am really passionate about that and I feel like I'm actually really grateful to have had the experience I did have because I feel now I can maybe Inspire others to to make a change and be different and to do understand that actually you're capable of anything like you can get through this stuff and you can come out the other side. I think that's really Important. Yeah, definitely and you have actually achieved some incredible things in your lifetime Ali and I love listening to you talk about your your life up to this point your things that you've achieved physically mentally just in your career, but I wanted to ask you so we got up to middle school and that kind of leads into heading into high school, which you said starts in grades. Seven years seven. Yep. That's right. Yeah, what happened when you got to high school then? Oh, well things really is. I saw spiraled for me. I felt very lonely growing up. I didn't have a lot of friendships. I think I probably isolated myself to a certain extent. I was teased and I felt very uncomfortable in myself and I didn't have the confidence to deal with the social dynamics of school when I was in grade would have been six or seven. I remember being asked if I wanted to attend like a slimming Club at my school and there were four or five girls. Who were asked to go and attend this club and not really knowing what was happening. I agreed to go and you know that what is a slimming it was just sort of makes my skin crawl now and it did so much damage to me. And again, this is why I'm so passionate about how we deal with these issues. So we went along at lunchtimes and we'd all get together and we'd be weighed and then we talked about what we'd eaten in the week and all of this stuff. It just made things spiral for me out of of control and the girls and I used to actually call it fat club ourselves, which is kind of really indicative of how we saw ourselves. And this was the kind of negative self-talk that we were joking about and talking about and and it did a lot of damage and it is so important that we help our students in the right way because that really wasn't the right way for me and you know, they may have meant well, but it really didn't do me any good whatsoever. So But thankfully I had a really amazing experience and it was a random act of kindness. Which again is why I'm so passionate about helping others a wonderful girl family around the back of the library and asked me if I wanted to join her and her friends and that really was quite life-changing to be honest. We're still friends now, we were friends all the way through high school and sixth form and yeah, I'm always so grateful for that moment and so indebted to Them just for seeing that I needed a friend and being there for me. Yeah, and just building me up gradually over time and it was really in repairing some of that damage. Yeah. It's an amazing that another child had the capacity to support you to empathize with you and that's something another thing that we focus on teaching kids now is practicing empathy solutely and some children have that kind of intuitively and it sounds like that girl was just the perfect person to come. Your life at that very time. Yeah, thank goodness. She did because it sounds like the school culture where you owe is not actually very favorable to kids well-being. No there really wasn't much awareness of that. And again, you know, I think that's why we focus so much on on creating resources that fall into that category because there is a real need for it. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely so You stayed strong with the help of that friend and the other girls in that group that she introduced you to you did start to kind of reach a turning point where you develop strength and you started to kind of realize that your perceptions of yourself when it came to Sport and fitness and health were really inaccurate and you had kind of I guess minimize what could what could be your potential? So how did that how did you come to that realization? I've been really Lucky because all the way through these difficult times and also want to emphasize that everybody has a story right? Everybody has something that's happened to them and a lot of people have gone through a lot worse than I have. So everyone's got a story but I was really lucky because throughout my story. I had these little glimpses of what I was capable of doing and I remember doing a swimming race and I really generally was never picked for sport and I was always the last one to be picked. And we went to a swimming competition assuming garlae type thing and and I didn't underwater race and the short story is that to everybody's surprise including my own. I actually won this underwater swimming right? I remember coming up from the Silence of being under the water and everybody was cheering at me and at that moment I realized that I could actually do stuff like my body was actually capable of doing it and sew along the way I've had these little glimpses of what I can do and I think that's really helped. Me too. To sort of have that belief in myself and not give up those little successes that we have and I know that you're really big now on celebrating success with your students absolutely and encouraging teachers to do that. But you know, those little things those little nuggets along the way of gold that just clean bearing you on and encouraging you. Yeah, and that wouldn't that is that's a very much one of one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about celebrating success. However small it is sort of celebrating success. You know with your kids with each other and because they can be huge boosts to self-esteem. Yes. Yeah, so originally thought sport wasn't your thing. Yep, and you felt that you weren't a sporty kid. And then all of a sudden this New World opened up to you and you felt you felt good about yourself and you started to sort of develop a new mindset when it came to health and well-being and then all of a sudden when you got to UNI, this was the new ally you were a sporty girl. Yeah I had I had the chance to start again. So there was a gym at their University. So I'd go to the gym early in the morning before anybody was there and just do my thing and gradually I realized I loved it and started going more and then I'd go when it was busy and I start to feel good. And then I actually joined I was approached to join a rowing eight on the river Dee in Chester. And so I started rowing in a boat of 8, which is really fantastic. That's the first time I'd ever been part of a team. It really gave me a sense of belonging. Yeah, that was amazing. And then I did a couple of half marathons and went on I think I've done four or five half marathons now amazing whereabouts were they in the world. So a couple in the UK and then since moving to Australia one in Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne incredible. Yeah, so you kind of have found your passion in running. Yeah. Yeah. I think I highlight was the London Marathon. That was fantastic and I did that in my first year of teaching and I got everybody doing a big fun run as well at school. So I raised money for the deaf and blind and I had my whole year three class and actually the whole school doing a fun run around the school field and we raise lots of money and then I went on to run the London Marathon which was so exhilarating and probably the best time of my life. That is actually incredible your you're running checklist kind of sounds like a bucket list me like, you know, you just Digging through all these challenges and smashing them and it's just amazing what you can do like, you know, when you set your mind to it a lot of it self talk and you just got it when you tell yourself you can do stuff. Yeah, and that's the same for the kids in our classrooms. If we can get them to talk positively to themselves and really instill that in them that a lot of it is self belief. It really is. Yeah and having that positive self-talk I can I can I can do this every time I catch a student saying I can't do something. I'm like, oh stop. Stop. It's I can I get a hand do this and if I can't do it now. I'll be able to do it soon. You know, it's changing that that self-talk. Yeah, and I've actually heard a lot of kind of endurance athletes marathon runners and the like saying that it's a hugely mental game. It's not so much a physical thing. Yeah. So what is going through your mind when you're running these extremely painful long challenging races? It's not really I'm not not that incredible. It's really loads of people do them. I Events are really uplifting. It's a really really amazing feeling doing with all those people and feeling just really together with everyone. That's there. I just feel happy to be honest. I just feel really alive and really happy and just really strong and how do you feel afterwards? When you finished tired? You don't get that like endorphin rush that everybody talks about I don't even get very emotional. I often find myself like getting bit teary when I'm running because I'm like, wow, this is this is great. This is amazing. And yeah, Yeah, yeah really empowering. What a great role model you are for your students and your own kids. So I hope so. It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? It's just especially with the daughter now and trying to encourage her to have a healthy relationship with food and exercise. It's a lot of pressure. But yeah, but you're doing to be a role model. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just experimenting with that. But it's fun. Yeah, and you do beautiful healthy food for your family, you know. Lane nourish your mind body and soul in every sense of that. You take such good care of yourself. And I think that having that respect for your own body is inspirational. So if anyone who is a teacher listening needs a little bit of a kick up the bottom to get on the bandwagon, definitely I find you very inspiring and I know thanks for you. Yeah, I think it is very important and I think for a lot of teachers as well themselves that we talked about having to inspire students, but we also have to inspire ourselves to look after ourselves and to have our own body confidence. Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely Ellie. Can you tell us about some of your top resources that you've created for supporting teachers to teach their students how to maintain a positive and healthy body image? Okay. So I think one of the very first resources I created was a bullying and Unit which is targeted really around year three and four, but it can be adapted for upper or lower years. And that really does what it says on the label. Basically, it's just some great strategies there for helping your students develop resilience to cope with bullying. So all those things I wished I had had a school hopefully in this unit. So it's kind of a tool kit for teachers. And so there's anything yeah, so it's really worthwhile having a quick look at that. Yep. I've also just created a couple of sort of nice to have posters about inclusion which are worth displaying in your classroom. And the latest one I think probably is the celebrating Student Success badges. So they focus on social and personal capabilities, which is lined with the Australian curriculum. But those badges can be given to your students to celebrate success in the areas of their personal and social development. So yeah. Yeah, and you've also written Complimentary blog for that resource the badges of all the different ways you can actually use them. So there's more than one way that you can use that resource in your classroom. So change it up depending on what your class is up to what you need their year level that kind of thing. What are some top tips that teachers should remember to be mindful of when they're supporting their students in this area. Okay. Well, it's obviously a very sensitive area. There are some things that we can do every day. And the first thing really is to be a role model and to To model positive body image yourself. So be the change be that person who doesn't accept any appearance-based teasing or bullying in the classroom. So if you hear it happening, if you hear a student teasing another student for the way, they look then it's really important that you step in and have those conversations in your classroom. Don't let it go also challenging, you know, the appearance ideals that we see in the media and having some discussions with your class, especially PS students will benefit from having those open discussions about what they're seeing in magazines and talking about is this real or is this Photoshop? So are we expected to look like this? Yes, having those difficult conversations and bringing the subject up. Yep. It's really important as well that we sort of steer away from appearance-based talk. So instead of complementing somebody for the way they look we could perhaps say. Oh, wow, you know you're being brave or you know, you're being strong. Ngai rather than hey, you know you look beautiful today. You're looking it's it's really hard to do, isn't it? Because I know when we see each other we often say I love your top or I love your hair or wear kind of conditioned as a society to Value people's external appearance more than their internal qualities. And I know that I have a poster at home that I refer to a lot because often I find myself complimenting my daughter on physical attributes and I feel like I should probably be yeah. Leaning away from that and making I mean, I it's easier I think to do it in the classroom situation for teachers because it's not as personal but when it's a friend or a daughter or a mum. Yeah, it's kind of like you love that person. You want them to feel good about ourselves solutely. Yeah, the I love strong. Yeah of you're looking at your Healthy Look fetch. You look well solutely you're glowing like these are these are compliments that are physical but they're things that are ways that you can make someone feel good without saying you're beautiful. You're pretty you're a prince. SS I mean I think the key thing is is just to empower students and children and colleagues and friends. Yeah to to understand that there's so much more than their appearance. Yeah. We love fashion. We talk about it all the time, but it's having that deep understanding that when I look at you Braun, I like your clothes but I like you for what's what you are. Yeah, not how you look. Yes. Yeah, and when we have that Mutual understanding it takes a lot of stuff away. It does. Yeah. It's like I don't care whether you're in your pajamas. You know exactly still Braun and that's that's who I'm connecting with. Yeah clothes. Yep, and I think that's really important if we can help our students grow with that message that we're so much more than our appearance then over time we can start to chip away at all that stuff and start being the change for them so that when they grow up into their teens, yep, they can think a little bit deeper than don't know what they're wearing. Yeah, and we want we want kids to develop these meaningful relationships. So we have to teach them how to Value quality. These are people that are under the surface and I think that you're right when kids become teenagers or preteens, even they have to be quite analytical when it comes to the information that they receive because they get a bit of an overload. So even if I loved how you were saying when you're talking about advertising and media and social media just going through that and having those open discussions with adolescent kids or even actually even children like from any age group up. Just asking them to dig a bit deeper. I had to find out more information that girl looks amazing in that top. But if I bought that top it would look different on my body or you know, just pulling things apart and and even I know I think that it's quite dangerous the filters that we all love to use on these apps and programs because they give such an unrealistic expectation and that was never around when we were teenagers. There was there was never the expectation that everybody would look photoshopped in every picture. It doesn't look like You anymore and I think that that's something that kids need to know that that picture. That's not you. That's a bunny is with massive black eyes is not how you actually look in the mirror. And you know what? I always think it's so brave when somebody posts an unfiltered photograph of themself. I have the utmost respect for people who will actually just be brave enough to do that and say this is me and actually love myself enough to put this Photograph up of me. Yeah the way I am, but it's kind of like us The world but yeah, I'm I'm sort of going to keep going on this Mission because there's so much more to life than all of this stuff that we're bombarded with every day. And it's very exhausting. It's exhausting for us as adults. So it must be exhausting for students to absolutely well. I applaud you for your mission you're doing such an amazing job of doing it and you really have just created this really admirable Outlook and perception of life and You you live your life to the fullest and I see you doing this every day. You are living out my life. It's an ongoing Journey. I'm still working on it. You know, it's taken me 40 years to get this far and I'm still not quite where I want to be. I'd love to do a triathlon. I also just want to carry on getting stronger and stronger. I'm just going to defy age. That's my mission and it is a huge Journey. But I think if we can set our students up with a solid foundation, then they can perhaps have some more of the stuff that we I have and I think as teachers where you know, we have that power. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your bravery honesty and all of your candor in talking to me today. I really appreciate that and I really think that people are going to find it incredibly helpful. I hope so and if I can help in any way, please just shout out to me because I love helping other people it inspires me and how can people contact you directly. Oh, well, you can contact me at teach data. So Allison doc Smith at teach data.com and also, So on my Instagram page if you want to perfect, thank you so much. Ali lovely to have you in thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of For the Love of teaching. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you get the latest updates on all the newest episodes.
Teach Starter resource producer and Chalkboard blogger Ali Smith joins me this week. We talk about how teachers can influence our students and help them to develop a positive self image. In the uncharted territory of today's social media-driven world, the messages being sent to our kids aren't always positive. As teachers we are trusted, real adults present in our students' lives, and we possess powerful influence to change the way they see themselves and to build their resilience to survive and thrive in this landscape.Ali talks about her own experience as a school student growing up in the UK, her teaching experiences here in Australia, the amazing resources she's created to support teachers in the areas of health and wellbeing, and her own personal goals and achievements.Find Ali's fantastic resilience resources here.Join us in our new For the Love of Teaching Facebook group, where we chat about the podcast, feature live vids of guests, and talk teaching!Have you subscribed to For the Love of Teaching? Don't forget! It means you'll be the first to know whenever a new episode is released.For the Love of Teaching is a podcast by Teach Starter. We make quality, downloadable teaching resources that save teachers hours of time and make their classrooms buzz! 