Play: It’s a word most people use without much forethought. We have all engaged in play at some point in our life, so we know what it is, right? Yet this seemingly simple word is more complex than we first imagined.
Picture a young child playing with blocks. The child uses the blocks to build a tower. As the child adds blocks to the top of the tower, it becomes less stable and eventually tumbles to the floor. At this point, the child either becomes frustrated and gives up or perseveres and tries again. If block building persists, it is highly unlikely that the child will instinctively establish the wide tower base needed for stability; prior knowledge about structures would be needed for this. You see, in young children most child-directed play involves what they already know; it is assimilative in nature (Piaget, 1962). This brings into question the widely held belief that children must be learning if they are playing. Perhaps, but how can they learn new, more challenging concepts by using knowledge and skills they already possess?
To distinguish regular play from educational play, The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) uses the term “play-based learning,” which is “intentional” and “purposeful” play (CMEC, 2012). Play-based learning is seen as different from regular play because it has specific learning objectives, requiring educators to structure the learning within play. There are three main ways educators can structure play to promote new learning:
There is growing awareness of the importance of developing strong early math skills in young children. Not only is math learning cumulative, but early math skills predict future math and academic achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). However, many primary teachers and early childhood educators lack knowledge about early math education and development (Youmans et al., 2018), do not feel comfortable teaching math (Germeroth & Sarama, 2017), and may be afraid to interfere in children’s play (Pyle & Danniels, 2016). There is clearly a need for early math-focused training that is tailored to suit the needs of classroom educators.
Children’s spontaneous play can involve explicit math content, like numbers and patterns. However, it is unlikely that new math learning will occur without intentional instruction. To support early math development, educators of young children need to plan for and prioritize math learning (Ginsburg et al., 2008). This can be done by “mathematizing” the learning environment with playful materials, tools, and activities that support math understanding (Clements & Sarama, 2013). Ultimately, structured play is ideal for building a solid early math foundation because it capitalizes on children’s natural curiosity, while incorporating targeted learning objectives. Educators can effectively promote early math learning by structuring math play in three key ways:
1. Use playful math tasks to introduce vocabulary and ideas. One of the most important steps educators can take to mathematize play is to introduce materials and tools that promote mathematical understanding (e.g. pattern blocks, pentominoes, relational rods, linking cubes, number paths, tens frames). After students have a chance to explore a material, educators should present a playful task and engage in meaningful interactions with their students (e.g. encourage the use of math vocabulary, ask questions that prompt student thinking and help them communicate their understanding).
For example, pattern block puzzles (shown above) can be used to build children’s visualization skills and geometric understanding. In this playful task, students are asked to match pattern blocks with their shape outlines, as educators model the use of geometric vocabulary (vertices, sides, rotation, shape names) and discuss strategies students use for matching pattern blocks with the appropriate outlines (shape discrimination and rotation). To extend learning, pattern block puzzles that require multiple shapes (two or more) to fit into one space can be used.
2. Present math play challenges to deepen students’ conceptual understanding. Young students are far more capable of mathematical understanding than previously thought and can engage with complex mathematical concepts with sustained attention (Bruce et al., 2016). Presenting students with a math play challenge encourages them to work with different ideas and make connections among them. One early math play challenge involves asking students to represent a number, like the number 7, using two sets of coloured linking cubes, in as many ways as possible (two blue cubes and five red cubes, one blue cube and six red cubes, and so on). This math play challenge helps students develop a greater understanding of the value a number represents and the multiple ways in which it can be composed.
3. Use structured math activities and games to promote automaticity. The more frequently young students engage with structured math activities and games, the more automatic their early math skills become. The activity of having students match quantity cards (pictures of small sets of objects represented as dots, fingers, frames, etc., shown right) with their corresponding numbers helps promote numerical knowledge. Dice games help students learn to subitize numbers (recognize the number of items in a group without counting), and playing dominoes can support student learning of basic addition facts. Moreover, using activities and games to promote automaticity in math is a great alternative to “drill and kill” worksheets that tend to leave students feeling unsuccessful and demotivated.
There is little doubt that early mathematics plays a critical role in promoting future math and school success. At the same time, many Kindergarten teachers and early childhood educators are ill-equipped to teach mathematics and are, understandably, uncomfortable with doing so. Structured math play is ideal for supporting early math learning because it promotes student engagement and targets important foundational skills.
First Photo: iStock
All other photos: Courtesy of the authors
First published in Education Canada, June 2021
For more information about ways to incorporate structured math play in preschools and Kindergarten classrooms, visit these websites:
The Robertson Program – Early Years Math
https://wordpress.oise.utoronto.ca/robertson/early-years
Erikson Institute – Big Ideas of Early Math
https://earlymath.erikson.edu/why-early-math-everyday-math/big-ideas-learning-early-mathematics
Play Learning Lab – Examples of Play
www.playlearninglab.ca/examples-of-play
Bruce, C., Flynn, T, & Moss, J. (2016). Early mathematics: Challenges, possibilities, and new directions in the research. http://mkn-rcm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/M4YC_LiteratureReview_25June12_RevisedSept2016.pdf
Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2013). Rethinking early mathematics: What is research-based curriculum for young children? In L.D. English & J.T. Mulligan (Eds.), Reconceptualizing early mathematics learning (pp. 121–47). Springer.
Council of Ministers of Education of Canada (CMEC). (2012). CMEC statement on play-based learning.
www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/282/play-based-learning_statement_EN.pdf
Duncan, G. J., Magnuson, K., et al. (2007). School readiness and later achievement. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1428–1446.
Germeroth, C., & Sarama, J. (2017). Coaching in early mathematics. In J. Sarama, D. H. Clements, et al. (Eds.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior: Vol. 53. The development of early childhood mathematics education (pp. 127–167). Academic Press.
Ginsburg, H. P., Lee, J. S., & Boyd, J. S. (2008). Mathematics education for young children: What it is and how to promote it. Social Policy Report: Giving child and youth development knowledge away, 22(1), 1–23. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521700
Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. W. W. Norton & Co.
Pyle, A. & Danniels, E. (2016). A continuum of play-based learning: The role of the teacher in a play-based pedagogy and the fear of hijacking play. Early Education & Development. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771
Youmans, A., Coombs, A., & Colgan, L.E.C. (2018). Early childhood educators’ and teachers’ early math education knowledge, beliefs, and pedagogy. The Canadian Journal of Education, 41(4), 1080–1104.
https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/3442
Students who are digitally literate know how to use computers and the Internet to find, read, organize, and critically analyze information, to compose digital texts such as infographics, blogs, or videos for a range of purposes using a range of applications, and to participate ethically on social media platforms and in other networked spaces using multiple modes such as text, image, sound, or hashtags. Teachers and parents play a crucial role in helping young people to develop the foundational digital skills and social practices that enable them to become critical readers, writers, and participants in a complex world where digital technologies shape how we think, understand and interact.
As children learn to recognize, decode and print the letters of the alphabet, they can also learn to recognize and type letters on keyboards, use digital applications to listen to and interact with e-books, use audio recording applications to record and share their ideas, and use block-coding platforms (e.g., SCRATCH) to design commands that computers can read. Young children require developmentally appropriate opportunities to make meanings with and through all of the technologies that will shape their literacies practices in life.
Creative collaboration sets the stage for students to think beyond the consumption of digital information as they negotiate and solve complex problems using a range of digital tools. For example, co-creating a digital video on a topic of social importance might require students to use cloud-based writing platforms for storyboarding, digital video cameras for recording, data management practices for organizing files, digital editing software, and online video sharing platforms with permissions set according to privacy needs. Through collaboration and peer review, students learn what it means to create, curate, and disseminate their work as active participants in networked cultures.
When searching the Internet for information, students who adopt an evaluative stance, and who read across information sources in order to compare facts, arguments, and perspectives (also called lateral reading) tend to construct more accurate understandings of topics. To develop an evaluative stance, students need opportunities to judge the relative trustworthiness of information sources using indicators such as context, author identity and credentials, point of view, evidence of funding, text genre, modality, use of emotional triggers, how the information circulates via social media and whether information can be verified. Students also benefit when they have to justify their trustworthiness rankings, through debate, with peers and when their parents and teachers model critical evaluation practices by thinking aloud as they make judgments about information.
Just as learning to read and write printed texts requires explicit instruction over many years with many types of text, and for many communicative purposes, learning to become digitally literate requires similar support. Even though people sometimes think children are born “just knowing” how to use digital tools, research has dispelled this myth. Even highly educated young adults who grew up using the Internet are susceptible to fake news, and may not know how to solve complex problems using computers. Given the importance of global digital networks to nearly every aspect of life today, prioritizing digital literacies teaching and learning in every grade and in every subject area at school is important so that students learn foundational digital reading, composition and participation practices from an early age.
Wednesday, May 19 at 1pm ET on Zoom | One-hour webinar
Presented by Karen Mundy and Kelly Gallagher-Mackay
Like so many families and children around the world, Canadians are looking with relief to a more open, carefree summer and normal return to school later this year. But after 18 months of profound disruption – will ‘normal’ be good enough? Are we on track to set all children up for success in a world that often seems more uncertain – and unequal – than ever before?
This webinar, sponsored by online learning toolmaker IPEVO, will examine how Canadian schools have fared during COVID19 compared to those in other jurisdictions. We then turn to evidence-based ways that educators can ensure a better, stronger, and more equitable start in September 2021.
If you sign up to receive special offers by email from both the EdCan Network and IPEVO, your name will be added into a draw at the end of this webinar to get one of two IPEVO Document Cameras!
Karen Mundy is a Professor of Education Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT). An expert on educational reform in lower-income countries, she is also an advocate and parent committed to improving educational equity in Canadian schools. She recently launched an academic support program that partners OISE volunteers with underserved students in the Toronto District School Board.
Kelly Gallagher-Mackay is an Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. Past roles include Research Director at the Future Skills Centre and at People for Education, and Northern Director of Akitsiraq Law school in Nunavut. She has two kids in public school.
IPEVO is a design-driven company dedicated to creating teaching, learning, presentation, and communication tools for the connected world, with a focus on Document Cameras. IPEVO has been leading the communication and visual transmission industry for more than 10 years and it is the number one choice for educators across the globe.
Published by the EdCan Network in partnership with
On a global scale, we’re faced with complex societal and environmental challenges such as climate change, poverty, inequality and environmental degradation that we must address in order to achieve a more sustainable future for all. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out 17 action areas aimed at sustaining life (both human and non-human), ending poverty, and achieving social justice. These are the building blocks of global well-being.
For educators, the SDGs have enormous educational importance and potential. They offer cross-curricular relevancy and invaluable learning opportunities for students to discover their crucial role in solving local, regional, and global problems, starting in their own community. Simultaneously, education ministries, school districts and school communities will discover that engaging with the SDGs can support students in the important goal of acquiring the six pan-Canadian Global Competencies identified by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), to equip them to thrive in and shape their world.
In this issue, we explore how educators can engage students to become active global citizens and authentically address global issues in empowering and hopeful ways.
Cover photo: courtesy MCIC
Whew. We made it through the winter. For many of you it has been, professionally and/or personally, the hardest winter ever. But with vaccination underway and warm weather ahead, we think we see light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.
After a year that forced educators to teach, or lead, reactively in response to a mountain of new challenges, we thought it might be a welcome change to look forward to a more aspirational approach to teaching and learning. Yes, there are ongoing and critical COVID issues. But we can also start thinking about how to re-engage students, build school community and make education the best training ground possible for our future leaders and citizens.
Taking on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whether as a school or as a class, is an exciting way to address all three of these goals. I like to think of this issue as a seed catalogue. The catalogue arrives when it’s still too cold to plant, but it conjures up big dreams for gardening season. We hope this issue will sow lots of ideas, and also lead you to the resources to develop them into a real plan. How great would it be to cover the curriculum in a way that engages students in real-world problems, encourages them to claim a stake in making the world a better place, and develops essential competencies in the process?
The authors in this issue are in the vanguard of integrating the SDGs into Canadian schooling, and part of an international network of educators who are helping to achieve these ambitious Agenda 2030 goals while providing their students with a positive, empowering opportunity to learn about and take action on global issues that are also urgent problems here at home, such as clean drinking water for Indigenous communities, homelessness, climate change, food insecurity, and racial inequities. See how other schools have taken on one or more of the goals in our article on UNESCO Schools, from our partners at CCUNESCO (p. 11). Or dive right into the features to learn about what the UN SDGs are, why they present such a great opportunity for educators, and how to integrate the SDGs into your classroom and school.
I hope this issue inspires educators, schools, and school boards to start planning how they might get involved in this world-changing initiative – and sow the seeds for a sustainable future.
Photo: courtesy MCIC
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Anxiety about the environment, a sense of helplessness, pessimism about the future, individualism – the world is going through a dark time and many people are concerned about the morale of young people and their ability to exercise active citizenship. However, Oxfam-Québec meets thousands of young people every year who are exercising their citizenship in the fields of climate, economics and gender justice, with both hope and ingenuity.
For over 45 years, our organization has been active in schools to encourage youth civic engagement so we can build a fair, sustainable world. We believe that young people wield citizen power and that it is crucial to treat them as what they are – agents of change – and in light of what they do – take unified action to fight inequalities.
When describing Oxfam-Québec’s current educational activities, we talk about global citizenship education, an educational approach that helps young people grow into responsible, united citizens of the world. The goal of this educational continuum is to inform youth, mobilize them, encourage them to influence the halls of power, and promote their activities. Young people join this movement by attending in-class workshops; taking part in the World Walk, which for many is their first experience of collective action; working on long-term projects like fundraising for sustainable development projects; or by engaging in calls for action as part of mobilization campaigns.
All of these activities correspond to specific elements in the Quebec Education Program (QEP), in terms of its mission, broad areas of learning, skills to be developed, and progression of learning. Oxfam is even cited as a cultural reference in the school curriculum, under the theme of wealth disparity in the Contemporary World course offered in Grade 11. All of our resources clearly identify the corresponding QEP elements. Many teachers, as well as non-teaching staff like spiritual leaders and community programmers, use these resources in class or as part of extracurricular activities. Given their demanding mandates and busy schedules, school staff members appreciate the support of our team, which offers learning activities to meet their needs. To use these resources, one can find all the information needed on the Oxfam-Québec site, under the heading Ressources pour les milieux scolaires (School resources, in French only).
The educational activities we offer are both transformative and empowering. In particular, they enable girls and minority youth to have a voice and be heard in their fight against injustice. We can build a fair world without poverty if young people mobilize to exercise their global citizenship, solve problems, and work with their peers around the globe.
In accordance with UNESCO guidelines, the Oxfam confederation believes that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations must be the priorities driving global citizenship education. In the following paragraphs, we present groups of educational activities tailored for four SDGs. These activities have been adapted to remain accessible during the pandemic, using online communication tools and interactive digital resources.
SDG 5, Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, is the heart of our work: it is impossible to build a just world if half of humanity cannot flourish and have their rights respected.
For example, the campaign Les tâches ménagères et le travail de soin. Ça compte! (Make Care Count) teaches young people about the unequal division of care work between the sexes, notably through a policy paper entitled Time to Care. A free workshop, Libres de choisir (Free to Choose), teaches high school students about sexual rights – which are a human right – and encourages them to consider the social and cultural context when reflecting on the impact of failing to respect these rights. The workshop’s title, referencing the question of freedom of choice, is significant: when it comes to choice, the inequalities faced by teenage girls around the world have major consequences on their lives. In Quebec as well, young people must make choices about their sexual rights. After taking this workshop, young people are invited to support a project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Healthy Mothers, Healthy children, which aims to improve the health of women, teens, and children. In the case of older youth ages 18 to 30, the project C’est pour elles aussi (It’s her right, too) can help develop their abilities to mobilize friends and family and disseminate positive messages using coordinated actions, digital action plans, and meetings with elected officials.
“My participation in the Oxfam-Québec project ‘C’est pour elles aussi’ (It’s her right, too) helped me understand that my voice is valid and that I have the right to be heard. Social networks are powerful allies for raising people’s awareness and advancing the debate. […] The team introduced me to theoretical concepts related to cyber activism and gave me the courage I needed to use my voice! I was even empowered to develop my own platform of inspiring resources on Instagram (@lesensduchaos) to counter the psychological stress caused by the lockdown.”
– Laurence C. Germain, participant in the Oxfam-Québec “C’est pour elles aussi” project
SDG 13, Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, plays a key role in Oxfam’s educational outreach efforts. This issue is intertwined with all global issues of inequality: historic, socioeconomic, and gender inequalities.
The campaign devoted to this topic is called Climat de justice (Climate justice). Like the content in the free workshop offered to young people ages 12 to 30, the campaign highlights the injustices associated with the climate crisis, and the outsized impact this crisis is having on the people who produce the fewest carbon emissions. Since indignation can be a powerful driving force, the young people involved can then participate in the 50th World Walk for Climate Justice. The World Walk is the culmination of a year of action. To highlight these efforts, the Oxfam-Québec team has asked the young people preparing for the walk to meet several challenges, from filming a video to speaking to the media. At the beginning of the school year, young people can also organize a symbolic, united action in their respective schools called Stand Up for the Planet to tell decision-makers they are committed to climate justice.
“To everyone who says that we can’t accomplish anything, look at us – 6,000 young people marching for the world! I am really proud to see this! It is our place, meaning that, regardless of our age, gender, colour, or religion, we have the right to use our voice.”
– Estelle Lafrance, age 17, member of the Oxfam-Québec Youth Seat, participant and spokesperson for the World Walk
Of course, SDG 1, End poverty in all its forms everywhere, underpins all the others. It is important to talk to young people about the economy and deconstruct dogmas that hinder a real understanding of possible solutions so everyone can live with dignity on this planet.
Along these lines, there is a free workshop for young people on the new economic model created by Oxfam. L’économie du beigne (Doughnut Economics) rejects the obsession with infinite growth at all cost and proposes instead that the economy target the well-being of humanity by respecting a series of social indicators without overshooting any planetary boundaries. This new model has already been adopted by many cities around the world, including Brussels, Amsterdam, and Nanaimo in Canada. This workshop is part of the campaign Taxing wealth: Flattening inequalities. Young people are invited to sign the petition addressed to the Canadian government asking it to rebuild an economy that is capable of tackling inequalities. In anticipation of the upcoming municipal elections, young people could ask candidates if they are interested in applying the doughnut economics model to their city. A wonderful way to learn about politics!
Doughnut economics also refers to SDG 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.
An innovative Oxfam-Québec project started some 15 years ago introducing young people to the values of innovation, creativity, and sustainability advocated by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC): Magasin du Monde (World Shop). This initiative has students create social economy businesses to promote fair trade. Participants create a shop, sit on a board of directors, and share the tasks involved: market research, inventory management and sales, activities to educate the school community, and internal and external communications. The shops do not sell ordinary products, as everything is certified fair trade and a percentage of the profits are used to support a sustainable development project. In some cases, the entire local community participates in the project, which becomes an engine of development. This happens, for example, when local farmers’ markets and tourism agencies help to promote these extraordinary shops.
“The work we accomplished on the committee for a sustainable City of Mont-Saint-Hilaire has increased my desire to have an impact on the world in which I live. It is proof that when you work at it, anything is possible!”
– Émile Chapdelaine, founding member of the World Shop at École Ozias-Leduc, member of the Oxfam-Québec Youth Observatory, and a member of the committee that helped get Mont-Saint-Hilaire recognized as a Fair Trade Town.
Research on and assessments of student participation in these so-called “civic engagement” activities reveal many benefits for the young people themselves. Those interviewed report improved self-esteem and a greater sense of responsibility. In addition, they exhibit an increase in positive social attitudes and a decrease in risky behaviours. This is mainly due to a greater sense of belonging to their school and improved academic results.
An external impact assessment carried out last year (Sogémap) confirmed the positive effect of youth civic engagement. According to this document, Oxfam-Québec’s global citizenship education programming enables young people to develop an awareness of global issues, an open, engaged mind and an increased ability to defend arguments. Not surprisingly, young people who take part in these activities maintain their civic engagement when they become adults.
In light of the above, it is easy to understand why encouraging young people to exercise their citizenship is crucial to supporting democracy and achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Back in 2017, the United Nations Population Fund noted that meeting the SDGs relies on bold measures to ensure that 60 million girls around the globe can live a life of dignity. In this pandemic period, young people, like the rest of the world, are experiencing unprecedented crises that directly threaten their present and future lives. By working with schools, Oxfam-Québec hopes to provide them with concrete measures for overcoming this challenge and support their efforts to create a more sustainable, inclusive society.
This article is translated from the original French. Some resources are also available in English; check the websites.
Resources for SDG 5:
Resources for SDG 13:
Resources for SDG 1:
Resources for SDG 8:
Photos : La Boîte 7
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Caron, C. (2018). La citoyenneté des adolescents du 21e siècle dans une perspective de justice sociale : pourquoi et comment ? www.erudit.org/fr/revues/lsp/2018-n80-lsp03532/1044109ar/
Gingras, M.-P., Phillipe, F.L., Poulin, F., Robitaille, J (2018). Étude sur les obstacles à la mise en place d’activités d’engagement civique en milieu scolaire au Québec. Canadian Journal of Education, 41(3), 661-687. https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/3177
Philippe, F. (2019). Projet de recherche Réussir : 15 constats révélateurs sur l’impact des activités d’engagement civique chez les jeunes de niveau secondaire au Québec. www.elaborer.org/pdf/R3.pdf
United Nations Population Fund. (2017). Worlds apart: Reproductive health and rights in an age of inequality. www.unfpa.org/swop-2017
Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals – also known as the SDGs or the Global Goals – came into effect on January 1, 2016, following a historic United Nations Summit in September 2015. 193 governments from around the world agreed to implement the SDGs within their own countries in order to achieve what has become known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To meet these new SDGs, countries are to mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities, and tackle climate change, all while ensuring that no one is left behind. To achieve this global challenge, everyone must take action both here and around the world. We know that these goals highlight issues that affect our students and communities as well as the broader world, and offer powerful points of connection to engage students on global issues in the classroom.
Global citizenship, the idea that the actions we take here can affect lives all over the world, is a compelling lesson for the classroom. Engaging students on global issues, and especially taking action locally, can spark exciting projects and build global awareness in students. Students who understand these local-global connections are building their understanding of issues facing the world today, developing compassion for the world around them, and discovering the power of taking action.
The Manitoba Council for International Cooperation (MCIC) has a long history of engaging students in classroom workshops and student conferences that are focused on educating students about global issues and empowering them to take action. If you need ideas on how to bring the SDGs into your classroom, we’ve developed Sustainable Foundations: A guide for teaching the Sustainable Development Goals, a new bilingual resource for educators that includes multiple lesson plan ideas and action steps for each SDG. The guide includes lesson plans for Grades 2–12, but largely focuses on Grade 5+, where the content around global issues is more relevant to the curriculum.
Taking an inquiry approach, each chapter in the guide offers an overview of a specific goal, including learning objectives, a summary of important international targets, and the ways to tell if we are on track to reach the goals. Each chapter offers inquiry-style questions that connect back to the curriculum, exploring some key questions, such as: Where did this goal begin? Why does this issue matter? Who and what are affected? and What is being done?
The guide explores the interconnected nature of the goals, taking care to highlight, for example, how we can’t reach Goal 1: Zero Poverty, without also reducing inequalities (Goal 10), ensuring decent work and economic growth (Goal 8), protecting life on land (Goal 15), and many others. There are many connections between each goal, and students can quickly begin to see how the success of one goal is tied to another.
Each chapter also highlights the consequences of inaction, sharing what might happen if we do nothing to reach the goal, and offers further reflection questions, inspiring quotes, and more. Of special importance to educators are the sections with resources, including ideas for taking action, lesson plans, activities, and video educational resources for use in the classroom.
For example, how can you teach your students about Goal 1: Zero Poverty? For students in Grades 5–8, consider the lesson “The World is Not Equal. Is that fair?” from the World’s Largest Lesson website and featured in the guide. This lesson highlights different types of inequality and helps students explore the impact inequality has on the wider society and economy. The lesson starts with students receiving an unequal amount of something (candy, stickers, etc.) and moves from fairness to a discussion on equality.
MCIC has also created lessons you can use in your classroom, now available directly on our website at mcic.ca. First, for students in Grade 5+, considering using the “Building Blocks for a Good Life” lesson, where students order a list of items from most important to least important for a good life. This lesson opens a discussion about poverty and what it means to have a good quality of life. Students will explore poverty as a “lack of opportunities” rather than a “lack of basic needs.” Framing poverty this way allows students to appreciate the complexity of the issue and promotes empathy in lieu of judgment.
Students work in groups to decide which items (a range including access to food, a television, cell phones, shelter, toys, health care and more) are most important and which are least important to a good life. Labels are provided that can be placed on blocks so students can build structures, or you can print a list of the items and cut them into individual squares so students can order them individually on their desks or at home.
This lesson has also been successfully used with high-school students, and we recommend leaving more time for older students to discuss differences of opinion and the debrief questions. Many great discussions can arise with all ages, based on student perspectives of the items on the list. There are several discussion questions and prompts included in the lesson, such as asking students if everyone needs the same things for a good life, a prompt that can be used to expand the conversation and include global perspectives. Do we need the same things as other countries? Use student answers to these prompts and differences in their prioritized lists to spark conversations about basic needs and lack of opportunities in the world.
Another MCIC activity with more global perspectives is “Breaking the Cycle,” for students in Grades 5–8. In this activity, students learn that poverty is not a result of individual choices alone; it is affected by societal systems. Students travel in groups through four different stations, making decisions about health and the environment inside scenarios from around the world, choosing how to spend their resources to survive. Focused on the themes of poverty and the poverty cycle, barriers associated with poverty, and a lack of access to health care and education, this activity brings home the real-world challenges people can face and opens a conversation about inequality around the world.
Learning about global issues is a great start, but true impact and passion can be inspired by taking action on the issues. Students who take action in their communities to effect change become engaged global citizens, learning powerful lessons about how their actions can change the world.
To encourage your students to take action, consider the ideas in the “How to Take Action” section included for each chapter of the guide, or the general tips on taking action in the introduction. For example, students could be encouraged to support a local organization through creating a fundraiser, or writing to their local government representative about the issues. Explore dosomething.org to find an issue your students care about and to find ways to take action on the issues. You can also see examples of how other students have taken action on the MCIC Take Action Blog, or consider connecting with an international cooperation organization working around the world. You can find examples of these organizations and their work through the case studies in each chapter of the guide or by contacting MCIC or another Council for International Cooperation in your area.
At our Generating Momentum for Our World student conferences, and as we share classroom resources, we encourage educators to let us know how their students take action on global issues. Following a student conference in rural Manitoba where students learned about the SDGs and how to take action on the issues, we heard about an exciting project one school had undertaken in their community.
With the support of their teachers, middle-years students created an “SDG Week” where they connected with their peers on a different goal each day. For example, when they talked about Goal 2: Zero Hunger, students baked and offered everyone in school a muffin. They hosted assemblies, shared information, invited MCIC to lead workshops, and created posters to share. One day they planted fruit trees on the school property, as a way to help reach several goals (no hunger, climate change, life on land, and more). With a new project each day, it was a great way to share what they learned with their fellow students and take action on the SDGs.
It was exciting to see how students took the knowledge gained about the SDGs and turned it into action, while sharing with their schoolmates.
AS EDUCATORS, you know that you hold the power to transform your students’ understanding of the world. As you teach them the universality of the SDGs and the issues facing the world today, we encourage you to also teach your students to be good global citizens who take actions that change the world for the better. Students who understand that they have the power to help reduce inequalities around the world and create a more sustainable future for all, are students who will take knowledge and turn it into action, making a more just world for everyone.
MCIC offers many free classroom resources at mcic.ca:
See also the World’s Largest Lesson website, with lesson plans and other classroom resources searchable by type of resource, age group, and duration:
Photos: courtesy MCIC
There is a unique opportunity before us to inspire and mobilize our students to engage with the world’s most pressing issues, as defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs provide educators with a wonderful canvas to embed global issues that require collective expertise and solutions into our curriculum. In this article, I share my experience with incorporating the SDGs into one of my courses to help students realize their lifelong mission and career purpose. While the example I provide was used in a post-secondary setting as a career education framework, my intention is to inspire you to consider how you might incorporate a similar approach toward helping your K–12 students connect with these critical topics and relate them to their own career aspirations.
I teach a post-university transitions course at both the University of the Fraser Valley and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. The main course objective is to ensure students are well prepared for their journey after post-secondary graduation. I elected to use the SDGs as a framework to help students consider three ambitious questions that can evoke personal values and their sense of purpose:
Rather than simply pose these questions in a single lecture, I elected to embed them in various capacities within assignments and activities throughout the term. In particular, I chose to structure these as “renewable assignments” that aim to provide value and impact beyond the course, as opposed to disposable assignments that students set aside once they are completed.
The results demonstrated immediate impact; students felt that the content was engaging and they immersed themselves into their assignments and activities. As one student noted:
“This course [and the SDG components] has me more focused on my dream of being more than a teacher… to ensure children are receiving more than a quality education… [and that they] do not go without food, have access to clean water, are healthy (mentally, physically, and emotionally), have equality, and gain skills to thrive in their community.”
Furthermore, a common insight that many students shared is articulated in this student’s comment about introducing the SDGs within the K–12 system:
“I found it surprising that the SDGs… (or the MDGs, which was the earlier version) were not introduced earlier in my undergrad, or even while I was in elementary and high school! Learning about them earlier on would have helped me better connect what I want to know and how I can help my community.”
I agree with this student that the SDGs can and should be introduced at a much earlier age. Three assignments that resonated particularly well with my students are described below, along with ideas for adapting them to suit the K–12 environment:
Occupational research
In the course, students are asked to research labour market information related to their career aspirations, using search engines such as the Government of Canada’s National Occupation Code (National) and WorkBC’s Labour Market Information Office (Provincial). What skills, education, and experiences are required to enter the occupation? What might be their career outlook and prospects, provincially and nationally? Having conducted this research, students are asked to consider which of the 17 SDGs their chosen profession or field might help advance and how.
Applicability to K–12: This assignment and its activities are likely suitable to the more senior secondary school years to help students further their research literacy and critical thinking skills. Students may also use this opportunity to explore the types of work – both in terms of paid employment and unpaid volunteer/service pursuits – that directly support or are involved within one or more of the SDGs, to help expand their understanding of how diverse occupations might be.
Information interview
In the information interview project, students speak with three individuals whom they believe can provide insight into a type of work they are considering, and then they reflect on these conversations. One of the reflective questions embedded in the project asks them to consider the common themes that emerged in their conversations, and how they believe these themes and individuals shed further insights into the SDGs.
Applicability to K–12: This assignment can be adapted to suit a particular grade level, from teachers providing a list of questions to ask in the lower grades, to empowering students to generate questions on their own in the higher levels. This assignment might be comparable to a career/occupation activity where teachers invite guest speakers to visit the class and talk about their profession, resulting in a group information interview where any students can pose questions. For example, a student interested in pursuing an occupation in trades might interview an electrician and learn that she is either explicitly or unknowingly supporting SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities by sourcing and using local materials in her projects, as well as SDG 5: Gender Equality through her advocacy work as a female in her trade association. If an obvious connection isn’t immediately made, the student and professional can engage in a conversation about how someone working in the profession could potentially align their work with one of the SDGs. This then becomes an interesting two-way instructional opportunity where the student can, in turn, help educate the professional about the SDGs.
Mission statement
Students develop their mission statement as part of an ePortfolio. During the development process, they consider: What is the work they want to pursue? Who are they doing this work for? And how might the SDGs be furthered as a result of their work? In the last question, they are able to again infuse the SDGs and talk about the overarching goal and connect it back to their ideal work and profession.
Applicability to K–12: Teachers can adjust the scope of this project based on the grade level to have students identify what they can do in their own life to help advance one or more of the SDGs; a charter of sorts. This may also align with a research project on how one can make a specific impact in their local (school or neighbourhood) community.
Ultimately, the SDGs as a career education framework can be used with students to generate ideas on occupations they’d like to pursue. Using the UN SDGs as a framework helps them expand their current career aspirations by asking, “Which of the SDGs do you think you can contribute to as you work in your chosen field, and how so?” By doing this they can better connect their work aspiration to a bigger purpose, and that purpose can also be a motivating factor in their coursework and post-secondary options. Additionally, the SDGs can help students who are unsure about their occupational goals answer the question: “What is a cause I am passionate about and how might I contribute to that cause, either through paid work or through volunteering?”
I’d like to offer a few tips for educators who wish to incorporate the SDGs into their curriculum as a means to enhance their students’ career development:
In the case of my students, the response has been very positive. I’ve had students and graduates tell me they are incorporating the SDGs in their job and graduate school applications and even during job and admissions interviews.
This quote from one student reveals the seemingly lifelong impact that embedding the SDGs into my curriculum achieved:
“Something that I have learned about myself in relation to the UN SDG(s) that I have identified was that it is not easy to accomplish these goals right away, as it happens over time… The way I treat others and the actions I take always depend upon peace and justice as everyone should be treated equally and be able to have a second chance to grow from their mistakes.”
Photo: Adobe Stock
Read other articles from this issue
Canadian Commission for UNESCO. (2020). Teacher’s toolkit: UNESCO Schools Network in Canada. UNESCO.
https://en.ccunesco.ca/-/media/Files/Unesco/Resources/2020/04/ToolkitUNESCOSchoolsTeachers.pdf
Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation (2021). Online global citizenship education resources.
www.saskcic.org/education_resources_collection
Canada is internationally known as a bilingual country. Twelve years ago, when I moved here from Brazil to complete my graduate studies, I thought that most Canadians would speak both English and French, but I quickly realized that that was not the case. I lived in Toronto, Ont., and when I met people who had grown up there, they mainly considered themselves Anglophones, even if they spoke some French. Others who had immigrated to Canada were plurilingual: they spoke two, three, or four languages at different levels of proficiency. Despite having Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Italian in my repertoire, I have never been considered bilingual in Canada because I do not speak French perfectly yet. The popular discourse of being bilingual here places value on the two official languages only, and even if you speak both languages, you need to sound like a native speaker or you will have your bilingual identity stripped away from you. This issue causes language insecurity and anxiety and demotivates people to learn languages. It is time to rethink what bilingualism means, recognize that Canada is a multilingual country, and focus on innovating language education.
Canada is no longer a bilingual country. It is multilingual. In fact, it has been multilingual since pre-colonial times. In addition to the two official languages, 60 Indigenous languages and more than 140 immigrant languages are woven into the Canadian landscape. Recently, in a span of only five years, Canada witnessed a 13.3 percent increase in the number of people speaking an immigrant language, and nearly 20 percent of Canadian residents speak more than one language at home (Statistics Canada, 2016). With recent announcements that the federal government plans to welcome more than 1.2 million immigrants by the end of 2023, this multilingual reality will continue to grow (Harris, 2020). In fact, multilingualism is a global phenomenon and is now in the spotlight because of recent trends in mobility, travel, internationalization of education, language revitalization efforts (UNESCO, 2019), and online work demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these factors contribute to people using different languages at home, online, and in their various communities.
The youth in Canada are accustomed to linguistic and cultural diversity, at least outside of the classroom: they can read a book in English, listen to K-pop, mix languages while interacting with others in online role-playing games, and listen to their grandparents speak in their heritage languages. They may not have high proficiency levels in these languages, but they are certainly exposed to them. Multilingualism is on the rise, in Canada and elsewhere, and so we must innovate how we teach languages and how teachers view their students. Indeed, preparing the youth to learn only the two official languages of Canada is not enough. Canada needs to go beyond English/French bilingualism and move toward equipping youth to have plurilingual and pluricultural competence; to encourage students not only to be tolerant of linguistic and cultural diversity, but to be active agents of social change, learn new languages, and be advocates for a world that is more linguistically and culturally inclusive. One of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals for a better future is to provide inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all and in language education, one way to accomplish this is to implement a plurilingual approach in the classroom.
First, what is the difference between multilingualism and plurilingualism? A useful distinction is offered in a 2020 publication by the Council of Europe, which states that multilingualism is the coexistence of different languages in a society, while plurilingualism is the dynamic development of an individual’s linguistic repertoire. In Canada, we have more than 200 languages in our society (multilingualism), while individuals may have several languages in their repertoire (plurilingualism). For example, one person may speak English fluently, understand different Englishes (e.g. from Newfoundland and South Africa), speak some Cree and a little bit of Spanish, and may be currently developing basic French and its different varieties (e.g. French from France, Quebec, and Haiti). In education, a plurilingual approach will encourage the development of this repertoire along with the cultures related to these languages; languages and cultures have long been suggested to be inseparable (Galante, 2020), that is, when learning a language, we also learn about related cultures, traditions, behaviours, beliefs, and how language is used across cultures and contexts.
This approach may sound complicated, but it is not. In fact, some educators may already teach, at least implicitly, through a plurilingual approach, but they may not be exploring its maximum potential. They may still view their students as simply language learners (e.g. English language learner), or bilinguals, but not as plurilingual and pluricultural citizens. So, what can educators do to start? Here are three initial ideas:
Figure 1. Linguistic Portrait, taken from Galante, 2019
These three examples may already look familiar among some teachers, but others may find them radical. But why should teachers even attempt to use a plurilingual approach? In the first part of this article, I provided a rationale based on the increase of multilingualism in Canada and in the world. Below, I will provide some arguments based on recent research.
Many studies conducted in different language classrooms (ESL, FSL, immersion, bilingual programs, etc.) and countries suggest several benefits of a plurilingual education, including language development, empathy, self-esteem, cognition, and motivation, among other factors. In my own research (2020), I have investigated teachers’ perceptions of a plurilingual approach in the English-language classroom compared to a monolingual approach (English-only). Seven teachers participated in the study and they taught two classes using two different approaches: plurilingual with one class and English-only with another class, for a period of four months. The content was similar but the approach was different, and the teachers did not have to change their entire curriculum to apply a plurilingual approach. In fact, they introduced one plurilingual task per week, for about 30–40 minutes in one class, while the other class had similar content but used one English-only task per week. After I interviewed the teachers at the end of the program, they unanimously reported preference for a plurilingual approach compared to English-only. For these teachers, a plurilingual approach:
The teachers also highlighted that they did not have to speak several languages themselves to use a plurilingual approach, and that even teachers who think of themselves as monolinguals (speaking one language only) can and should try to implement it in the classroom.
Given the current multilingual trends in Canada and recent calls for the provision of inclusive education to all students, innovative pedagogical approaches that prepare them to communicate across languages, cultures, and contexts are now needed. People will continue to communicate face-to-face and online, and being able to use their repertoire to understand how language use and culture may vary across contexts, be open to more language and cultural learning, and advocate for linguistic and cultural inclusiveness in schools and other spaces is paramount for an inclusive society. If we want to better prepare our students for current and future Canadian realities of multilingualism, change needs to happen soon. Canada has a unique opportunity to remain a leader in language education, but it needs to go beyond bilingualism and encourage Canadians to become plurilingual speakers. Supporting plurilingualism will not take away from the languages already existent in Canada; it will add openness to the English/French bilingual dichotomy and the popular discourse that the country is bilingual. Canada is much more than that.
For more research and resources, visit McGill University’s Plurilingual Lab.
Banner Photo : Adobe Stock
Read other articles from this issue
Council of Europe. (2020). Common European Framework of References for languages: Learning, teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume. Council of Europe Publishing.
www.coe.int/lang-cefr
Galante, A. (2020). Plurilingual and pluricultural competence (PPC) scale: The inseparability of language and culture. International Journal of Multilingualism.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2020.1753747
Galante, A. (2019). “The moment I realized I am plurilingual”: Plurilingual tasks for creative representations in EAP at a Canadian university. Applied Linguistics Review, 11(4), 551–580.
Galante, A., Okubo, K., Cole, C., Abd Elkader, N., Wilkinson, C., Carozza, N., Wotton, C., & Vasic, J. (2020). “English-only is not the way to go:” Teachers’ perceptions of plurilingual instruction in an English program at a Canadian university. TESOL Quarterly Journal.
https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.584
Harris, K. (2020, October 30). Federal government plans to bring in more than 1.2M immigrants in next 3 years. CBC News.
Statistics Canada. (2016). Linguistic diversity and multilingualism in Canadian homes.
UNESCO. (2019). International literacy day 2019: Revisiting literacy and multilingualism, background paper.
United World Schools. (n.d.). UN sustainable development goals: Our role.
In the little village of Bades near the Moroccan Mediterranean coast, Fatima knows that plastic washed up on the beach sometimes ends up in the stomachs of the chickens she prepares for her family. The teacher running the “Ressacs sans plastiques” project (Rahmani et al., submitted) also told her that many marine animals get sick from eating plastic. Fatima, a member of a local crafts cooperative, spent a lot of time looking for solutions to this problem. It was very challenging because her cooperative had decided to reuse plastic waste to make marketable products. Fatima thought of stuffing toys with bits of plastic. She posted a photo of her first bird toy prototype on the “Ressacs” project Facebook group page for a quick product assessment. Fatima’s prototype was inspired by the fabric jewelry stuffed with plastic bags one of her friends made.
Other women made reusable bags to package the cooperative’s products. Plastic plates covered with fabric and embroidery were also proposed as possible solutions. Finally, the cooperative made multiple trips to the beach to remove plastic waste coming from the village, the river, and ocean currents. Efforts to resolve the plastic problem, which are ongoing in Bades, will end when the prototypes for replacing and reusing plastic have been evaluated and refined to meet the challenge raised by the women of Bades: How can we reduce the amount of plastic on our beach and at the same time develop new marketable products?
The problem-solving approach used by the young artisans in the “Ressacs sans plastiques” project is called design thinking. This term, popularized by California design and innovation firm IDEO in 2006, describes a creative, collaborative work process that generates multiple solutions, rapidly prototypes and tests, and focuses on users’ needs. Initially employed to create commercial products, design thinking is now used by organizations (e.g. IDEO.org and d.school, in the United States) and schools (Design for Change, in India) to develop solutions for improving quality of life and the environment. Whether applied in the sciences, humanities or environmental education, design thinking offers the opportunity to analyze local problems and find solutions that foster sustainable development goals (UNESCO, 1995): creating sustainable communities (Goal 11), fighting climate change (Goal 13), and protecting land-based ecosystems (Goal 15). Moreover, since the design thinking process is both relevant and meaningful, it supports the acquisition of numerous core competencies: critical thinking, problem solving, innovation, creativity, etc.
For example, young students working with the Design for Change organization built remote-control planes out of recyclable materials to carry and disperse seeds for revegetating land adjacent to their school. Other students, also inspired by Design for Change, installed a special ramp so students with disabilities could board the school bus instead of relying on adapted transportation, enabling these children to take part in class field trips and enjoy opportunities to socialize on the bus. The Design for Change philosophy is based on the premise, “I can!”
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process involving defined stages that can be carried out sequentially, simultaneously, out of order or even repeated. The ultimate goal is to bring about transformative change. The steps presented below (see Figure 1) were inspired primarily by Brown (2009) and Scheer, Noweski and Meinel (2012).
Figure 1: Steps of Design Thinking
Inspired by Brown (2009) and Scheer, Noweski and Meinel (2012)
An iterative approach focused on the needs of users, design thinking is also practical and flexible when it comes to experimentation. Both divergent and convergent, the process values empathy and optimism. Design thinking is non-linear because as problem solvers gain empathy for the needs of users and work on refining the best solution, their attention constantly shifts between the problem space and the solution space. Unlike a traditional scientific investigative approach, design thinking focuses on both the problem and its solutions. In the problem space, a lot of attention is paid to defining the problem in terms of the user experience and position. The team of problem solvers spends a lot of time observing the problem situation and user behaviours in situ. The effectiveness of the process relies on participants amassing and deepening their knowledge about the problem. In the solution space, problem solvers investigate multiple possibilities by developing plans and building prototypes. These prototypes, created quickly, without trying to achieve perfection, serve as “playgrounds” for discussing and exploring various solutions. In this fashion, the problem and its solutions co-evolve, constantly interacting.
Design thinking has recently been presented as an effective, motivating tool for teaching elementary and high-school students how to solve local problems. To address local ecological issues, students could use this approach to create or organize:
By using design thinking, teachers and their students can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) defined by the United Nations in 2015. The 17 goals in question focus on areas for action that promote, for example, sustaining life (both human and nonhuman), ending poverty, and achieving social justice. In the case of the aforementioned “Ressacs sans plastiques” project, the artisans’ work focused primarily on goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources. The examples suggested above for elementary and high-school students would include the following SGDs: 3 (health), 6 (water quality), 11 (resilient, healthy cities), 12 (environmentally responsible behaviour), 13 (climate change), and 15 (land-based ecosystems).
The meaning and nature of sustainable development and the actions required to achieve it are starting to become known. Emerging sustainability initiatives include the slow food movement (Petrini, 2006), conservation design (Arendt, 2010), smart growth (Duany et al., 2010), eco-cities (Register, 2016), and biodiversity restoration (El Jai & Pruneau, 2015). Slow food aficionados take the time to share locally grown “clean” food with people in their community. In conservation design, urban planners developing new neighbourhoods begin by identifying sites of natural and cultural interest, then concentrate the built environment outside the areas where these treasures are found. Proponents of smart growth and eco-cities use a variety of techniques to reuse rainwater, calm traffic, increase the density of residential areas, and promote universal access to parks. Finally, efforts to restore biodiversity include measures such as wildlife crossings, living plant walls, green roofs, hedgerows for biodiversity, and hotels for insects, amphibians and small mammals. Over time, these sustainability initiatives modify existing systems, structures and practices, with the ultimate goal of regenerating natural systems that support human life and that of other living beings.
With design thinking, students can work with their classmates to contribute their own ideas to the sustainability movement. This investigative approach is well suited for the complex nature of environmental problems. Design thinking fosters more appropriate solutions because it invites students to define complex problems from different perspectives (social, scientific and environmental), which enables them to expand the problem space before looking for solutions. According to our field tests, design thinking can encourage students to work collaboratively, pique their interest in the problem under study, and strengthen their high-level skills like creativity, empathy, critical thinking and problem solving (Pruneau et al., 2019). The iterative design thinking process encourages learners to ask questions, look for information, collaborate with their peers and the community, propose concrete ideas, and test and model solutions, all while focusing on the needs of users. Engaging in this dynamic process develops their sustainability skills.
When solutions generated by design thinking become realities, learners gain confidence in their capacity for action. Moreover, organizations that employ design thinking also mentioned other educational benefits, especially with regards to teamwork: richer discussions thanks to a diverse group of problem solvers, enhanced communications, a shared understanding of the vocabulary used, and greater cohesion (Pruneau et al., 2019).
Banner Photo: Adobe Stock
Photos provided by the authors
Read other articles from this issue
Arendt, R. (2010). Envisioning better communities. Seeing more options, making wiser choices. Routledge.
Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. Harper Collins.
Duany, A., Speck, J. & Lydon, M. (2010). The smart growth manual. McGraw-Hill.
El Jai, B. & Pruneau, D. (2015). Favoriser la restauration de la biodiversité en milieu urbain : les facteurs de réussite dans le cadre de quatre projets de restauration. VertigO, 15(3).
Petrini, C. (2006). Slow Food, manifeste pour le goût et la biodiversité. Yves Michel.
Pruneau, D. (ed.). (2019). Design thinking for sustainable development. Applied models for schools, universities and communities. Université de Moncton, Groupe Littoral et vie. Available free of charge online in French and English: https://competi.ca/ and https://lel.crires.ulaval.ca/categorie/guidesoutils-pedagogiques.
Rahmani, Z., Pruneau, D. & Khattabi, A. (submitted). La pensée design et Facebook comme outils pédagogiques pour accompagner des femmes dans la résolution d’un problème de pollution plastique au Maroc. VertigO.
Register, R. (2016). World rescue: An economics built on what we build. Ecocity Builders.
Scheer, A., Noweski, C. &Meinel, C. (2012). Transforming constructivist learning into action: Design thinking in education. Design and Technology Education: An International Journal, 17(3).
1 Abdellatif Khattabi, Zakia Rahmani, Michel Léger, Boutaina El Jai, Liliane Dionne, Vincent Richard, Viktor Freiman, Natacha Louis, Anne-Marie Laroche, and Maroua Mahjoub
Extraordinary times call for creative, resourceful solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged educators, students and parents alike. It has also shone a spotlight on the inequities that made school closures and distance learning especially hard on some students and families, and raised new equity issues that must be addressed as we move forward. Researchers and innovative educators share their evolving knowledge, learnings and insights to create an ongoing conversation about how we can deliver equitable, high-quality education for all students through this pandemic and into the future.
Photo : Adobe Stock
When the beginning of the pandemic closed schools and left district leaders like me in a constant state of disruption, I joined a small working group of EdCan Network staff and colleagues from our Advisory Council for an important virtual planning process. We engaged in a series of sessions to get to the heart of the impact that our Network can achieve to support K-12 educators across Canada. After many iterations, our creative team wholeheartedly endorsed the following three priorities to respond to the rapidly evolving opportunities and challenges that our education systems are currently facing:
These priorities were the focus of our virtual December 2020 EdCan Advisory Council Meeting. (The first ever gathering of the CEA was in 1891 in Montreal.) We will continue to explore how we can align our focus with supporting Ministries of Education, faculty, and school district leaders, principals, teachers, and staff throughout 2021 as we strive to increase the capacity, self-efficacy, and well-being of our 110,000 members, and through them, to heighten every student’s well-being and opportunities for meaningful learning to help them discover their purpose and path in life.
For more information about EdCan’s Theory of Change, Intended Impacts and Strategic Priorities, please visit: www.edcan.ca/aboutus
For a list of the education and philanthropic leaders who serve on EdCan’s Advisory Council, please visit: www.edcan.ca/council
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
It was September, the start of a new school year. Lunchtime was almost over and I remember leaning over the shiny wooden dining hall tables of Ackerman Hall to pitch an idea to my colleague, Suparna. I wanted to provide a creative writing opportunity for my Grades 9 and 10 students to think outside of themselves and build meaningful relationships with those beyond their own Senior School community. As we brainstormed, wisps of ideas coalesced. The service-learning opportunity that emerged was a cross-divisional project where my students would each interview a Junior School (JS) student from Grades 4, 5, or 6 and then craft a story, making the latter the hero of the story. We even leapt ahead and imagined the grand finale: Senior School students reading their masterpieces to the littler ones, with the latter listening with rapt attention and nibbling on chocolate chip cookies.
As an Academic English teacher, I consistently endeavour to stretch my pedagogy to benefit the personal learning journeys of my students. However, the intention to stretch beyond my pedagogical comfort zone brought trepidations. Despite my excitement for facilitating an innovative learning task, I felt nervous about possible challenges. For example, what if my students considered that writing a 1,000 to 1,500-word short story for JS students was too elementary and superficial? A lack of engagement on their part could result in insensitivities, hurting the JS students who looked up to them. I thought of the school community. Would they see this service-learning creative writing project as I did and accept it as an opportunity to go beyond normal coursework and explore not-yet-visible possibilities? I worried that the quality of the final pieces would be less than those produced through more traditional approaches. I moved beyond my concerns, however, with the support of Suparna and my administration. I deeply felt that the benefits and value of this project would far outweigh the drawbacks.
I pitched the idea to my students, and what a relief it was to see that there was no apathy, only excitement. My students decided to first conduct their own research to find out more about Grades 4, 5, and 6 students. What did they do in their spare time? What kinds of books did they like to read? What words were linguistically “cool” in their world? After a class discussion of their findings, each of my classes appointed subgroups to interview the JS teachers to gain further insight.
What happened next was sweet. Many of my students had already been taught four to five years ago by the teachers they were to interview. Stepping into their classrooms was, to my students, like stepping into their childhood. The teachers marvelled at their poise and maturity. They exchanged shy smiles. The students’ eyes shone with respect while the teachers’ glowed with care and joy. Patiently, the teachers answered their questions.
Next, my students conducted two sets of 30-minute interviews at the Junior School. Many of the Senior-Junior school pairings were done at random, whereas some were more deliberate to respect learner needs. For the first interview, the Junior students were asked to bring in three objects of personal significance from home to conduct a show-and-tell. Thrilled to be the centre of attention, they spoke openly about themselves. My students followed up with a second interview as they began formulating the type of story in which they would cast their young partners as heroes.
Once my students had their plots in order, they asked the Junior students to create three illustrations. My students provided just enough guidance for the drawings, but not enough detail to reveal the plot. It was a visual arts opportunity. The younger students, tickled pink that their new friends were thinking so deeply about them, zealously drew with an insatiable curiosity about the plot.
The revising and editing process took time. I had 40 students and wanted to provide meaningful feedback. Meanwhile, they continued with other language arts tasks. It was December by the time the Junior students received their personalized gift. My students carefully inserted their young friends’ drawings amongst the printed pages and bound their books neatly with ribbon. This time the Junior students visited the Senior School classroom, which was decorated for the holiday season. Clumps of Senior and Junior students sat all over the classroom, spilling into the hallway… and yes, the younger ones listened with rapt attention while drinking hot chocolate and nibbling on chocolate chip cookies. When the readings were over, the groups just carried on chatting. The sessions ended with hugs and the question, “When will I see you again?”
From a curricular perspective, my Grades 9 and 10 students developed their creative writing skills. However, what my students gained from this project went far beyond creative writing accomplishments. In particular, they began to learn that meaningful relationships lie at the heart of service, and that such relationships can benefit the school community in unpredictable ways.
The resulting stories were of higher quality than I have ever received. My students were not creating for a mark. They were focused on their new little friends.
It was serendipitous that two students who both loved music and had a penchant for breaking out into dance move sessions were paired together as partners. It was both fascinating and amusing to watch how they collaborated with each other during the interview sessions. They developed a common understanding of how to work together and an appreciation for their similar interests and qualities.
I watched an artistic Grade 10 student, who initially knew very little about video games, step outside of her comfort zone to learn all that she could about her Grade 6 student’s favourite game. As a result, she was able to celebrate her partner’s interest by writing about a protagonist who overcame the trials of a video game world.
One of my fairly serious students was paired with a couple of Grade 5 students who loved romances. With dreamy countenances and a twinkle in their eyes, they begged their senior partner to write a romance story. Also, the story had to include a pig. Although my student was challenged by the requests, she committed herself to the task because she was invested in bringing the story to life for her young partners.
My students were moved to see the JS students demonstrate an equal investment in the process when asked to provide illustrations for their stories. While distributing the completed illustrations to my students, I heard many of them excitedly cry out, “This is exactly what I had envisioned!”
Suparna and I noted that all of the students involved were able to experience positive emotions, felt fully engaged in the process, and built relationships that brought meaning into their lives. In the end, together they created a product that made their accomplishments visible. In fact, these experiences represent the five key elements that psychologist Martin Seligman believes promotes psychological well-being and happiness.1 We did not intentionally manufacture a project to “cover” these elements. A post-project reflection session revealed that we did.
The positive outcomes of this service-learning project were numerous and reached beyond relationship building.
Our school’s strategic plan includes:
My students had many opportunities to shift perspectives and see the world through the eyes of a JS student, cultivating a sense of care, empathy, and compassion. I frequently highlighted how chuffed the Junior students were to have new, older Senior friends. Their trust in my students helped the Grade 9s and 10s build confidence in their oral communication skills and experience growth in their interview techniques. All of the students transcended the barriers of traditional classroom walls and experienced an innovative form of meaning making. Cumulatively, all of these aspects increased my students’ investment in their finished products, and the resulting short stories were of higher quality than I have ever received. My students were not creating for a mark. Rather, my students were focused on making visible to their new little friends the heroes that they already were.
The JS teachers were impressed to see the quality of work that their past students were creating and were eager to adjust their current expectations to further nurture the skills they saw developed at the senior level. One JS teacher had her class create lovely thank-you cards. Another teacher planned to have his students dramatically recreate their story using a green screen in the future.
Unfortunately, the green screen dream did not materialize, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and students were tucked away in isolation. The pandemic made Suparna and I wonder what such a project would look like if completely carried out online. Interviews and sharing sessions could all happen in virtual breakout rooms that could be monitored by teachers and recorded and submitted by the Senior School students to ensure ethical behaviour. Expectations and ground rules would need to be set in advance. Delicious cookies, I suppose, would also need to be mailed out to students.
No matter what the scenario, oftentimes as teachers, we postpone innovative ideas for more traditional approaches due to lack of time or confounding logistics. However, both Suparna and I feel that if it is at all possible (even on a smaller scale), service-learning initiatives are well worth the effort. The school community benefits, and students realize that perhaps the greatest secret in receiving an education is that they have the power to express that learning in an act of giving.
Photo: courtesy the authors
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
1 According to Dr. Martin Seligman, the five pillars of well-being are: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. See: Seligman, M. E. (2012). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
The Power of Us enters the pandemic publishing parade with a compelling message that is both challenging and hopeful. Change consultant and author David Price makes a strong case for unseating traditional hierarchical ways of organizing our businesses, schools, and community organizations. That’s the challenge. But the hope lies in Price’s illustrative efforts to show us where in the world it is already happening.
The result of nearly three years of deep inquiry, The Power of Us draws us into a story of mass ingenuity, or what he refers to as people-powered innovation. Much more than just the sharing of ideas or organizing ourselves into cooperative clusters, it is the innovation that happens when groundswells of public activity, including inspiring examples of youth activism, meet up with organizations that understand and acknowledge that the traditional divisions between producer and consumer, artist and audience are quickly melting away. It’s what happens when companies start to see their users as co-creators, when the health-care sector starts to value highly invested patients as highly invested innovators, when schools begin to see their educators, parents, and students as co-learners, imbued with a sense of agency to make a difference outside the walls of the schoolhouse.
Price examines many of the familiar themes of change literature – ethos, structure, mindset, and leadership – through the lens of people power, supported by some very robust and compelling case studies written from the author’s own commitment (pre-pandemic) to travelling the world to find the organizations, companies, and schools that were actually showing up to their work differently. The generous summary of key points and take-aways at the end of each section invites the reader to look at their own practice and their own organizations through the lens of people powered innovation.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced David Price into rewrite mode, not because he was wrong, but because his ideas were so very right. COVID-19 is cast here, not as part of the scenery but as a main character, allowing The Power of Us to make a strong contribution to our rethinking of how we want to be in a post-pandemic world.
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
Thread, 2020. ISBN: 9781800191181
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,” goes Tennyson’s poem, “Ring Out Wild Bells.”
Many of us were only too happy to ring out 2020, or maybe give it a firm boot out the door. With COVID-19 vaccines rolling out, we hope for a better year ahead.
But what are we ringing in – the new and better, or the same old? After a year of disruption, the longing to return to the status quo is completely understandable. But if that’s all we do in our schools, it’s an opportunity lost. This year brought us many lessons, including wider awareness of the pervasiveness of systemic racism. We saw both the drawbacks and the potential of online learning, and we also saw how less privileged and higher-needs students suffered disproportionately from the loss of in-person classes. Some students became frustrated and disengaged – but others thrived as they became free to follow their own interests without the social stresses of a classroom. All these experiences and more should lead us to question just what school could and should be as we move beyond the COVID-19 Era.
Through fall/winter 2020, and culminating in this magazine, we tracked the learning that was emerging from the struggle to adapt an education system to pandemic conditions and still provide quality, equitable education (read the whole series on our website). One standout for me was Vidya Shah’s article (p. 15) showing how we can (and why we must) work towards greater equity in education during and beyond the pandemic.
It’s important to acknowledge the huge effort and serious stress that educators at every level of the system have shouldered during this crisis. But now we have a chance to look forward, to ring in the new. In our spring issue, EdCan will explore how the UN Sustainable Development Goals can be used to engage students with global and local issues and help them acquire essential competencies. And in June, we invite contributors to share their vision for the (near) future of education. How can we create a schooling experience that truly prepares today’s students to build tomorrow’s world?
Photo: Adobe Stock
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
We want to know what you think. Send your comments and article proposals to editor@edcan.ca – or join the conversation by using #EdCan on Twitter and Facebook.
AS A RECENT elite-level athlete, varsity coach, and current educational researcher, I remain very concerned with the ways that locker rooms and physical education classes are still reproducing, reiterating, and regurgitating hegemonic forms of masculinity. A social hierarchy that rewards typical bodies, traditional expressions of masculinity, and athletic ability still seems to come to fruition as a result of the ways that gym class is taught. These elements of doing masculinity and doing sport collide head-on in gym class. Masculinity is policed and labelled by the ways that boys physically move their bodies (Kehler, 2016). Thus, male gym class must not be seen as an environment for “boys to be boys,” nor one of hardcore competitive sport. It is a comprehensive educational domain that needs to focus on the development of holistic young men (Gerdin & Larsson, 2017). School hierarchies will never change if gym class continues to reward the most physically typical and gender-conforming learners. Physical education can be about teamwork, collaboration, hard work, positivity, fun, and friendships (Gerdin & Larsson, 2017). Until this is applied to pedagogy, physical education will remain a regressive forum for the recapitulation and celebration of hegemonic masculinity.
Much research has recognized that the construction of masculinities is heavily linked to physical endeavours and sport (Wellard, 2009). This makes the appropriate facilitation of inclusive physical education even more important for the robust development of young men and boys. Despite the hegemony within physical education, now, more than ever, boys and young men are desperately trying to safely and publicly perform types of masculinity that do not meet the traditional requirements of what it means to be a “boy.” But these attempts at gender diversity seem to draw the most attention and danger in the realm of physical education and school-sanctioned sports. It is sadly known, province to province, that physical education enrolment numbers after Grade 9 often drop precipitously (Dwyer et al., 2006). Too often, educators are ignoring the early warning signs of many boys’ discomfort with physical education. Many boys intentionally forget their athletic wear, conjure up imaginary injuries, skip class, and create ailments, all as a way to avoid gym class. The same avoidance tactics are deployed within the locker room because many boys fear how their masculinity will be read based on their physicality. This means many of them nervously change in a washroom before entering the locker room, seek refuge in a cubicle, strategically position themselves in a corner, or simply do not participate (Kehler & Chaudhry, 2018).
Physical education should not promote an uncomfortable atmosphere of ableism and heteronormativity, and its pedagogy should not perpetuate this. I am concerned with how physical education is still pedagogically deployed in such an exclusive manner. Gym and physical education classes are comprised of learners who range from the lowest of physical capabilities to the highest, and of learners who express masculinity in a multiplicity of ways. Pedagogy should reflect this. It is certainly not always an easy task to fulfill the athletic or social needs of all learners, but the young men and boys who struggle in the domain of sport and fitness, or express diverse masculinity, deserve a serious effort. They deserve to not be forgotten and to not be left out. They deserve to flourish in an athletic environment that supports their broad range of masculine gender expressions and athletic skills.
I would like to encourage educators and teacher-coaches to foster a physical education environment that instills confidence, positivity, passion, and excitement in all learners, no matter their physical capabilities or unique expressions of masculinity. To do so, I provide a framework of steps that can be cyclically applied within the classroom, and on the field, court, or rink.
Step 1: Always start with a conversation. Before every class, unit, or semester it is important to transparently set the stage, much like providing learning goals. Learners need to know the structure of the class and what the aim of the time being spent there is. It is essential to let learners know that this is not a place of high-intensity competitive sport. It is a place to learn about inclusivity, collaboration, teamwork, fun, and friendship. Additionally, learners need to realize that understanding a sport is simply one assessed component of their time in gym class. They need to know that they are being evaluated in the areas listed above.
Step 2: Level the playing field. The curriculum is certainly a guideline for what to teach, but diversifying it as much as possible is an exciting way to reposition or disrupt traditional ability and the social power imbalance it can create. Incorporating adaptive modes of sport that make them accessible to all learners is a fantastic way to level the playing field (Wood, 2015; School Adapted Team Sports, n.d.) It is important to strive toward equally spreading the feeling of comfort. By disrupting or altering traditional sport, educators are allowing students who may have otherwise never felt it to feel comfortable in gym class. Or, create a more universal sense of discomfort by introducing new forms of sport that allow all students to be of equal ability and confidence.
Step 3: Never stop role modelling. Often physical education teachers or teacher-coaches are highly regarded by students as being cool. I encourage educators to use this influence as a way to constantly perform masculinity or allyship in a healthy, robust way. This means speaking up when phobic pejoratives are used, establishing relationships equally with all learners, and embodying inclusivity at all times.
Step 4: Always debrief. Allocate at least ten minutes to unpack the lesson, practice, or class. It is another explicit reminder of what was learned and gained from the session. Refer back to Step 1’s emphasis on inclusivity, collaboration, teamwork, fun, and friendship. Have students share moments where they collaborated, engaged in teamwork, had fun, and built new friendships. Let them leave knowing that these were the true goals of the session.
Step 5: Never stop checking in. Make it a habit to speak confidentially with learners or observe while teaching. Ask what their needs are. Discuss ways to address or remedy their needs. Restructure pedagogy in a way that facilitates the solution to these issues or needs. This step is the engine of inclusivity. Continue to come back to this step as way to persistently address the needs of all learners in a physical education class or school-sanctioned sport. When you begin a new season, class, practice, school year, or semester. Return to Step 1 and fuse it with Step 5. The cycle will then restart.
Photo: Adobe Stock
Dwyer, J., Allison, K., LeMoine, K., Adlaf, E., Goodman, J., Faulkner, G., & Lysy, D. (2006). A provincial study of opportunities for school-based physical activity in secondary schools. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39, 80–86.
Gerdin, G., & Larsson, H. (2017). The productive effect of power: (Dis)Pleasurable bodies materialising in and through the discursive practices of boys’ physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 23(1), 66–83.
Kehler, M. with U. Chaudhry (2018). Body building or building bodies: Improving male body image through Health and Physical Education. What works? Research Into Practice, The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat.
Kehler, M. (2016) Examining boys, bodies and PE locker room spaces: “I don’t ever set foot in that locker room.” In M. Messner & M. Musto (Eds.), Child’s play: Sport in kids’ worlds (pp. 202–220). Rutgers University Press.
School Adapted Team Sports (n.d.). American Association of Adapted Sports Programs. http://adaptedsports.org/school-programs
Wellard, I. (2009). Sport, Masculinities and the Body. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203874400
Wood, R. (2015, August). Sports for the Disabled. Topend Sports. https://www.topendsports.com/sport/disabled-sports.htm
The McConnell Foundation has been supporting workplace wellbeing in K-12 education through its WellAhead initiative since 2017. In early 2020, it brought together relevant thought-leaders to consider how to make measurable improvements in the wellbeing of K-12 education staff across Canada. A Design Team was formed to develop a preliminary concept based on that initial thinking.¹ The Design Team then engaged with education stakeholders to get their feedback on the concept, and learn from their experience.
The stakeholders who participated generously shared their time, expertise, and encouragement, including pitfalls to avoid, opportunities to strengthen the approaches, and perspectives that had not previously been considered. Their feedback contributes to developing approaches that fit their environments, and accurately reflect their needs and preferences — which will ultimately lead to a greater impact.
¹Charlie Naylor (Independent Consultant), Felicia Ochs (Wellness Coordinator, Parkland School Division), André Rebeiz (Research Manager, EdCan), Tammy Shubat (Director of Programs, Ophea), and Kim Weatherby (School Health Promotion Consultant).
EdCan and Happy Teacher Revolution are excited to offer EdCan members exclusive access to Happy Teacher Revolution’s online training and certification program to initiate and lead their own teacher support group within their school community.
All EdCan Membership categories – Individual, School District Members, Not-for-Profit, Faculty of Education, and Corporate – receive an exclusive 20% discount. Not an EdCan Member? That’s okay! Click here to learn more about becoming a member. PRO TIP: If you’re an employee of a School District, Not-for-Profit, or Corporation that is an EdCan Member, then you, too, are an EdCan Member! What’s more, if you’re a student or employee of a Faculty of Education that is an EdCan Member, then you’re a member, as well! Click here to find out if your organization is already an EdCan member. |
The spring of 2020 will be described as “unthinkable” in our future textbooks. Grocery shelves were emptied, parks banned, classrooms closed, and businesses boarded. The world as we understood it was paused. But through the challenges, perspectives started to change and priorities shifted. Despite the fact that we were physically separated from one another, we came to a common understanding: that the “busy” of our lives was a glorification of exhaustion, discontent, and fear.
Teachers, with no classrooms to teach in, found themselves having to transition into digital educational spaces. My position was a little different. I was an online educator long before the days of COVID-19. However, the forced isolation led me to re-evaluate my own professional practice, in order to answer the many questions that were coming forward at that point. I was forced to reflect. In doing so, I realized that I needed to translate digital learning into an authentic and valuable experience for my students, and I needed to shift my own mindset about online practices, opportunities, and capabilities. We needed to come together, not just for academic success, but for our well-being as a group.
I thought I knew all there was to know about online teaching. It was my specialty, after all. However, despite my familiarity with the platform, I never fully understood or appreciated its potential benefits. Initially, its service for me was as a connector for learning and one-to-one Q and A. Honesty is key here, and as an online teacher, I will frankly admit that prior to the pandemic, I was quite resistant to online interaction. I believed the benefits of face-to-face connection could not be replicated through a screen, nor were they reliable enough in that context for professional practice. When it was necessary, I used it sparingly and in short intervals, as we were instructed to do by our administration. It felt forced and cold.
However, circumstances of these past months allowed for time to understand the potential and value of online learning. It was my bridge to students who, otherwise, would not be able to continue their studies. My mindset shifted. Mediums such as Google Meets and Zoom helped to alleviate the feelings of isolation. I scheduled meetings multiple times each week, with no filters, and no staging of my table or background. I let the clutter of home and the sound of my toddlers’ Netflix cartoons be part of my presence. In order for this to feel authentic and genuine, I had to first be an example of that for my students. Slowly, as both my students and I became comfortable with the process, I was able to answer their academic questions, but also ask about the pictures on their wall or the scenery at their cottages, and have them giggle with me at the many cups of pretend coffee my daughter would pour me while interrupting my lesson: “Mommy needs more coffee?!”
In the absence of physical contact, technology allowed me to build relationships – and those relationships extended beyond our scheduled times. Students informed me that there were others in the class who were struggling with the course because of issues like Internet connection, transportation, and accessibility. I made the taboo move of passing along my personal number (GASP – I know, but I did it!) to have those students reach out to me. I would make the arrangements necessary to ensure they had support in completing their tasks, and/or resources beyond their academics, if needed. I arranged phone conferences, created live docs through shared Google drives to provide immediate feedback, and when necessary, reached out to my administration to send paper copies of the material through the post for the students in more remote areas. I sent text reminders when I could to those who needed the extra push.
I found that trust could be established through the monitors, not in spite of them. I began to approach this platform with a newfound appreciation for its ability to cradle interconnection and create a new dimension of teacher/student relationships.
I know each teacher’s practice and experience will be different, whether online or in the classroom. However, I have come to three key factors that were instrumental in making the online experience successful and fun!
Let’s also admit that despite its benefits, online teaching is hard! As e-learning teachers, we must combat the inconsistencies of attendance and daily logins, missed assignments, and students’ overall struggle with time management and motivation to engage with a screen for their academic benefit rather than social pleasures. We have worked very hard to do this, and continue to do so, to help our students find success within themselves, regardless of the unexpected circumstances they may find themselves in.
Our learning does not end when we become teachers. As we transfer our binders and printed lessons onto digital platforms, and blend our classrooms into interactive and accessible hubs, we need to embrace a new vision of what an educator can be. It is not the end of the role, but rather a transformation of it, which we get to be part of. Change is inevitable and remains one of the only constants – but our growth is an optional component.
Photo: Adobe Stock
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
As a team of university researchers and educators, we have been studying stress and resilience in teachers since the pandemic began. Based on responses from more than 2,200 teachers from across Canada who completed 92-question surveys in April, June, and September of 2020, and several follow-up interviews, we were able to gain a detailed understanding of the demands, resources, stress, and coping experienced by teachers. We have published widely in both academic journals and media to share teachers’ voices and the lessons we learned from them.
As we were collecting and analyzing our data, there were two related dialogues taking place about issues akin to our research. First, we read headlines suggesting the effects of the pandemic could be viewed as trauma, and that both teachers and students would suffer long-term losses from their current educational experiences during COVID-19.
Second, we began to hear the term “toxic positivity” and witness verbal attacks on teachers who made positive or optimistic comments on social media. The catchphrase “It’s OK to not be OK” gained traction as the mantra of the day.
These two separate dialogues seemed to accept pathology as the logical consequence of stress, while concurrently eroding attempts at recovery and resilience by those teachers who responded to the challenges in different ways. Given our discomfort with these observations, we decided to dig deeper into the science of toxic positivity, long-term effects of trauma, effects of positivity, and resilience to see if we could better understand the relationship between them.
Given that our study showed chronic and increasingly elevated stress in teachers from April to September, we were interested in looking at the long-term effects of both high levels and extended durations of stress. Specifically, teachers in our study reported a 10% deficit in coping with their stress in April and a 6% deficit in June, suggesting that teachers across Canada were adjusting to the realities and challenges of remote teaching. We were alarmed to find that teachers reported a 30% deficit in coping in late September, when most teachers were returning to classroom instruction, but under unusual conditions due to COVID-19 safety requirements. Our September findings clearly demonstrated that additional resources are needed to meet demands. Considered together, the results of our three surveys suggested that teachers had the capacity to recover from abrupt, major changes to their teaching, but that repeated, incremental changes and challenges resulted in lower capacity for coping.
Our review of the literature revealed that the experiences of teachers’ stress and coping could be understood through Bruce McEwen’s concept of allostasis. Allostasis is the evolutionary capacity to respond to immediate threat through a fight, flight, and freeze response – an adaption to the experience of acute stress. Humans have developed this capacity as a protective measure for survival. However, allostasis is a double-edged sword that can create safety, but can also cause harm. While allostasis has biologically prepared us to respond to emergencies, the cumulative burden of repeated exposures to stress leads to a chronic stress condition related to “allostatic load” – a situation that can have physiological and psychological health costs. Gauging by the survey and interview responses, it seems that this may be what was happening with Canadian teachers over the course of our study. They had begun to recover from the pivot to remote teaching by June but, instead of spending the summer continuing to recover, they entered July 2020 with a 6% deficit in coping that was never fully addressed. Between worrying about what would happen in the fall, preparing for possibly teaching remotely or in person (or both), and then returning to teaching situations that in many cases did not resemble typical classrooms and involved worry for the health of front-line educators and their families, teachers’ stress increased greatly. As we cautioned during an interview with CBC Radio, the 6% deficit we found in June might have seemed small, but if left unaddressed it had the potential for damaging and enduring effects. It was the canary in the coal mine, and ignoring it could have serious consequences for both teachers and students.
Is there an alternative to predictions of long-term costs to teachers’ health as a result of the pandemic? As we know, good science always considers the counter-argument, and we found an equally convincing one in the work on resilience by George Bonnano. His research challenges the concept of distress and illness as a singular response to trauma and disruption, suggesting that there is a different and more typical path that can result from traumatic events. With reference to people who had experienced terrible challenges such as being victims in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Bonnano found that while some people developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), most demonstrated resilience. This is not to dismiss the real and important needs of those who experience PTSD, but instead points out that pathology is not the only, or even the most typical, response to traumatic events. Canadian Senator and researcher Dr. Stanley Kutcher noted that there is an increased public perception that negative emotions are an indicator of pathology and illness. In contrast, Kutcher suggested that negative emotions are an important part of addressing life’s challenges and essential when adapting for the future. Without such emotions, he argued, we cannot develop resilience.
Bonanno found that one of the predictors of resilience as opposed to pathology was a positive outlook. This is where the ideas of balance and toxic positivity come into play. Toxic positivity seeks to reject, deny, or displace any acknowledgement of the stress, negativity, and possible disabling features of trauma, and instead looks only through rose-coloured glasses. In contrast, a positive outlook acknowledges both the negative, challenging aspects as well as the more optimistic frames and pathways. Optimism, unlike toxic positivity, encompasses both reality and pathology instead of ignoring potential and actual psychological disability experienced by some people in response to trauma.
Confusing optimism with toxic positivity comes with two kinds of costs. First, by mistakenly interpreting and silencing optimism as toxic positivity, individuals who embrace positivity as a coping mechanism are denied this support for their own resilience. Given Bonnano’s findings about the importance of optimism for resilience, we cannot afford to squelch this resource for teachers who need it to maintain their well-being. Second, observations of those we view as important to us serve as exemplars of how we normalize responses to change. If there are no longer voices of optimism because they have been silenced due to accusations of toxic positivity, then pathology and negativity by default become the exemplars. Just as it is OK to not be OK (and to seek supports for this response to what is clearly a very stressful situation), it is also OK to be OK.
Collectively, we are all going through a very challenging time together. Each of us will need to use everything we can – both internally and externally – to face the future beyond the pandemic. However, teachers work in a variety of settings, with a spectrum of resources and challenges, and a range of student and family needs – not every teacher is “in the same boat” during this pandemic, even though we are all experiencing the same storm. There are other pathways to understanding teacher responses and contexts besides the false dichotomy between pathology and toxic positivity. In fact, a person can be both optimistic and realistic at the same time. Therefore, it is important to consider the cost to individuals as well as groups when we call out presumed “toxic positivity” – when in reality we are all just doing the best we can with the resources we have.
The pandemic does not define us – it reveals us. Let it reveal our best selves, as teachers who show compassion, support, grace, and acceptance for both ourselves and our colleagues as we all respond to and recover from the challenges of COVID-19 in the best (yet different) ways we can.
Photo: Adobe Stock