Dan Haesler

Dan Haesler has been working with teenagers for over 15 years. As an 18 year old he was a community outreach worker in Manchester, using sport as a vehicle to engage the otherwise disaffected youth in the City’s poorer areas.

In 1999 he qualified from Liverpool John Moore’s University as a Personal Development, Health and Physical Education Teacher.

Pastoral care and wellbeing has always been at the forefront of Dan’s educational philosophy. From being Head of Year 10 in one of England’s largest inner-city high schools to his current position of Head of House in a small independent school in Sydney, over the past 10 years, Dan has worked with students and parents from all walks of life and socioeconomic backgrounds.

In 2010 he was awarded the NSW Premier’s Anika Foundation Teacher Scholarship in order to address and raise awareness of youth depression in education. This has enabled him to engage with the leading minds in the fields of education, mental wellbeing and positive psychology; these include Dr Jane Gillham, Jenny Fox-Eades and Sir Ken Robinson.

The August 2010 edition of the Australian Council for Health and Physical Education Active and Healthy Magazine carried an article by Dan. Entitled “We Can’t Fail the Children of the Educational Revolution”, Dan challenges the writers of the new PDHPE National Curriculum to address mental health in the same proactive way in which physical health is addressed in our schools.

As a keen advocate for student wellbeing and educational reform Dan is both an idealist and a realist; and in the words of Tal Ben-Shahar Ph.D, "To be an idealist is to be a realist in the deepest sense - it is being true to our real nature."

He blogs at www.danhaesler.com

Author's website: What did you do at school today