Considering the role of well-being in education

As an early career practitioner, I was very much focused on curricula, pedagogy and behaviour management within my teaching practice. I believed that concentrating on those elements of teaching would allow me to walk into any educational environment and have the ability to ply my trade regardless of the individual personalities of the children I taught. I was aware of children’s differing capacities and would certainly cater my teaching style to fit the needs of the child; however, it was not until I worked with a particularly challenging young boy in a child care centre that I realized something was missing from my understanding of how to best help children reach their potential. The child’s primary educator taught me how to consider the child from a ‘goodness-of-fit’ model (Churchhill in Early Child Educ J 31(2):113–118, 2003), focusing on the child’s well-being as a way to maximize the child’s learning. Through a process of self-study, I was able to reimagine my educative practice within early childhood environments to move beyond the basics of what I had known and began to consider other holistic elements of children’s development, namely well-being.