Care, Safety, and Geborgenheit

This post is being written before we know the results of the presidential election. Where I am the state/local races went as expected, so not too badly. Whatever and whenever we get a presidential election, our students will be in need of care and safety. But what do we mean by these words? They are not things we can quantify easily and definitions are often fluid.

Yet we know when we feel safe and cared for and when we do not. In my research with Education Support Professionals many of them talked about their role in the school in terms of helping students to feel this way. As I considered their observations, I came across a German word, Geborgenheit, which is a single word used to describe that feeling of nested safety. Although it is often translated as “security”, it this is inadequate and that a better way to think of it is as carrying , “…a sense of being nested within a sheltered space to which one can open up” (Hutta, 2009: 256). It encompasses both physical and emotional safety and our exploration of it might help thous of us working in the "healthy schools space" to bridge the gap that can sometimes exist between physical and emotional safety (Wimborne, 2018).

In the “old “ Coordinated School Health” framework the construct of school environment encapsulated both the physical and emotional environment. In the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child framework, they are treated as separate things. This has advantages and disadvantages if we are considering how to create a healthy school. The advantage is that each area can get the attention it deserves. The disadvantage is that we can lose sight of the deep connection between the two. After all, can students feel truly emotionally safe if they are in a school building that is falling down around them?

We try to make our room the safest place in the building…they can come and tell us anything they want, anything on their mind. And they can have a place to chill out for a minute… (Carleen, Paraeducator)*

Joseph and Dinah (2017) explored how the term could be used to explore with young people how schools create “… an environment that free of fear and the risk of harm” (260) so that young people cannot learn and flourish. What are we doing to create these environments?

Since we are working in English, not German, we cannot do as Hutta (2009) did, and ask young people what makes them feel georgen. Rather we need to explore with them what words and concepts they use to describe this type of feeling and what environments foster that. Can we find the words to create an understanding of safety that encompasses the physical and the emotional. And more importantly, can we do the work of creating those environments?

References

Hutta, J.S. (2009) Geographies of Geborgenheit: beyond feelings of safety and the fear of crime. Environment and Planning: Society and Space 27 (2) 251-273.

Joseph, R. S. & Dinah, M. M. (2017) Supervision of learners with intellectual disabilities in a special school: in loco parentis of teachers as a wellness perspective. European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research. 11 (2), 249–261.

Wimborne, O.J. (2018). Preparing for life beyond school: A capability approach to post-16 education. PhD thesis. King’s College London. Dissertation downloaded from https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/