Who Gets To Be Smart?
I recently finished reading the incredible book ‘Who Gets to be Smart’ by Australian author Bri Lee. Her book discusses the matter of privilege and how it not only limits who has access to good education and what good education means, as well as how making education exclusive actually limits the quality of the education itself. This book has made me think about how so many people do not get taught how to look after their body, and many end up with injuries or chronic conditions as a result. As I am sure you have heard before, I am a big believer in preventative care being the best medicine.
In primary school I learnt about the body and health mostly through the Life Education programme that toured the public schools of NZ (and still does). Harold, the giraffe puppet, teaches you about anatomy, digestion, health and bodily systems.
In high school, puberty at a private girls school is limited to a week long programme where they awkwardly demonstrate how a tampon works. Sex education involved condoms and bananas. Physical Education (PE) was the dud lesson where your teaches encourages you to play netball or dodgeball even if you’ve never been taught the rules. In time, you learn where the ice packs are kept for when that one kid rolls their ankle. Even when PE was a elective subject, anatomy lessons told us the names and locations of muscles on the body. Some of them, that is. No mention of why doing a warm up before your work out is crucial. No discussion around anaerobic or aerobic forms of exercise. I didn’t hear the word fascia until I was at university. I didnt know some muscles were there to support the skeleton and some there to provide explosive mass movement and power.
The information I was exposed to about how to maintain adequate and sustainable fitness and balance in my body I got from physiotherapists after I injured something and we were discussing rehabilitation. The information I needed about how to train and how to be active came from my second and third years in tertiary education, well after the hours and hours of training to get into that university ad occurred and well into puberty when the damage from training poorly was already starting to take effect. Even now, at the age of 30, my big toes may never recover from what pointe work did to them, or so my podiatrist says.
The thing is, I am one of the lucky ones. I had a good education, grew up in a middle class family, and paid attention at university because that environment suited me. I worked in an industry where anatomy and injury prevention are the bread and butter. This has allowed me, as an adult, to look after my body wisely and to know which health professional to go to when I need them. I am also able to afford this care even when it is not funded, and I see the value in investing in my health this way. For so many, the knowledge I have been exposed to, will never reach them. For some, an injury or a condition diagnosed when they are middle aged will prompt them to learn about their body and how to live in it. A number of my clients are now learning how to balance the strength in their shoulder girdle so they can continue to play tennis with their teenagers, or learning about their pelvic floor and abdominal muscles so that they don’t “put their back out again.” For them, massage is both rehabilitation and injury prevention. The process as a whole is an education in trial and error.
If you are reading this, you are probably already fairly invested in educating yourself about how to look after your body. But, if you are new to this, maybe you have just had your first injury, or maybe you are really digging in your heels with your training, my advice is this: the more you know about your body, the better you will be at having one. Yes, I think there should be more injury prevention education in schools all the way through. Yes, I think the health system should include more education for patients about how their body works so they can make more informed decisions about their treatment and recovery. Yes, I think everyone could benefit from learning the basics in anatomy and soft tissue related topics.
For this reason, I love talking to my clients about their body and what is happening when I massage someone. In this small way, we are able to learn together about what they are experiencing and how we can work to improve their experience. I hope that one day, everyone has the opportunity to be informed about their own body and to be educated in the way that they need to be to prevent injury and harm.
