The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of PSE Criticism

By: Lu Xiaoyao

Disclaimer: I am writing a completely opinionated piece evidenced by nothing but my own experiences. I do not claim that this is representative of everyone’s experiences, all mentions of “UWC” are intended to only describe the parts of this school that I have come to know, and I acknowledge that your experience here might have been different.

This goes out to everyone who cares about mental health in this school.

I’m going to talk about how our mental health events and groups, like PSE, RUOK Day, and the Peer Ambassadors, aren’t taken seriously – by you. The people who don’t care about mental health, they suck, but they’re not the villains in this story. You are.

You have a lot of questions, so let’s get started.

Earlier this year, I came across a piece on this very website, which, while explaining the mental health issues in our school, stated fierily that “someone who needs help will be called a ‘wuss’ or a ‘pussy’.” If the author has experienced this in our school, I am sincerely sorry, and I respect your individual experience.

On the other hand, I am completely shocked by this cold and bold blanket statement that accuses this entire student body as a horde of classic 1970 high school movie bullies. I was reminded of a request made of me recently: “Provide evidence. How many fingers would these cases occupy on your hand in our school?”

As I read on, my eyebrows gradually rose as, indeed, no evidence was provided to justify this massive, and, in my opinion, somewhat cliché claim about how students treat mental health in our school. I am not saying that this never happens in our school. But in my experience, not a single student that I know has said anything even borderline offensive about students receiving counselling.

That brings me to my point, the author of the original article about RUOK Day narrates the standard problems of how students treat mental health. However, I do not think that that is representative of the UWC community that I have come to know. I think UWC experiences a unique set of problems around mental health.

So, what problem am I talking about?

I think the reason mental health education in our school is defunct is not that those needing mental health support are dismissed as “pussies”, as the original piece complains.

Instead, I believe the problem is when you, the people who do care about mental health, write off RUOK Day as too surface-level or badly organised or unrepresentative or, more crudely, ‘useless’, just because you think you know better.

When you do that, the people around you who didn't care in the first place now have an excuse to turn off when the day begins, because ‘the smart kids’ – you – have openly harangued RUOK Day as useless.

When you do that, other people who also care about mental health also think that it’s okay to just criticise and complain, because they saw you – who they know to care – sitting back in your proverbial armchair and waxing philosophical.

When you do that, you yourself stop engaging, stop discussing the questions – good questions, like “why do people feel barred from counselling” – and the room quiets: other people who don’t care as much as you do stop talking because you sit there thinking that this is beneath you.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy: you say that RUOK Day is useless and the people at the top should just “do better”. When you say that, others stop engaging, and then RUOK Day really does become useless.

This is what killed PSE. You said that it was useless, students started echoing your opinion, teachers started echoing your opinion, and it really did become useless in the end.

Perhaps you will say: “But we got change! We will get a new curriculum!”

Do you really think that a new deck of slides will solve the problem?

The ugly truth is, it’s very hard to revamp an entire curriculum or an entire RUOK Day to make it engaging. There is not some ultimate slideshow that will transform the most nonchalant into folks who care. It takes grassroots change. And, to their credit, DBA, and people writing articles like the original RUOK Day piece are the grassroots change we need to see, but they ought to apply their passion towards more constructive ends. Saying ‘this sucks’ doesn’t do much to address the issue.

Maybe you will say: “What should we do then, nothing?”

Yes, nothing, or a variant of that.

I actually find a lot of the PSE and RUOK Day material very helpful. In fact, RUOK Day has, to an extent, changed my life. The thing is, the moment I pivot myself to actually try to care about PSE and RUOK Day, they work. There are plenty of good discussions we could have if we gave these things a chance, if you gave them a chance.

So, here’s my request: if you care about mental health, don’t be so quick to dismiss RUOK Day just because others do. Get involved in dispelling as many untruths as possible – maybe you have gone to counselling yourself, and maybe you can share what it was actually like. Be the person who cares – maybe the only person who cares – and say ‘let’s talk about this’. Even if there are only a few people listening and the rest are playing Tetris, even if you might be the only one talking.

In the end, I think my message is quite simple. To rip off a mental health learning module, called Project Rockit, that was also criticised for being “useless”:

“Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution.”

If you care about mental health, try to make the best of what we have in class right now. Then, if you are really dissatisfied, send an email to the school. Write an article.

Maybe then you’ll realise that RUOK Day and PSE aren’t actually that bad, and that the article you were going to write is no longer necessary.