Students’ Mental Well-Being and Its Determinants in Jesper Juul’s Pedagogy

Abstract

Jesper Juul is a Danish educator, family therapist, creator of a humanistic approach to education, founder of the international organization Familylab which operates in over 15 countries around the world. The author equates the psychological well-being of an individual with mental health and developed psychosocial competencies, and in his numerous works he suggests teachers how to achieve such a goal. He believes that the following four areas should be developed in a young person: personal integrity (self-awareness, knowledge of one’s own needs, emotions, values and boundaries), self-esteem (i.e. what an individual knows about himself/herself and how he/she feels about it), self-confidence (which depends on the skills one has) and self-responsibility (in order for a person to be responsible for his/her own decisions, actions and choices). Juul repeatedly points to the crisis of the school and its destructive impact on the mental well-being of students, who in this institution are constantly assessed, required to be obedient, and cannot decide on the fulfillment of their basic needs. To improve the situation not only of students, but also of teachers and parents, he proposes: 1) to replace compulsory schooling with the right to education; 2) to modify the management culture at school and to develop a new type of leadership in education; 3) to take care of teachers, and, in particular, to equip them with competencies to build relationships; such content should also be introduced into the pedagogical preparation program for students – future teachers; 4) to thank students for going to school.