Digital technologies have taken a more prominent role in Canadian classrooms in recent years, but COVID-19 has pushed technology centre stage, requiring educators and students to strengthen their digital skills and potentially reconsider their traditional roles.
In April of 2021, the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) released a new study, 21st Century Digital Skills: Competencies, innovations and curriculum in Canada, which examines, among other things, the top technical and human skills (or “soft skills”) required by educators and students.
As the 2020/21 school year winds down and planning for the fall begins, uncertainty remains around the vaccine rollout and the coming term. What will the coming school year like? A return to in-class instruction, remote learning, or a mixture of both (hybrid learning)? What is certain is that the demand for digital skills will continue to grow.
When used skillfully as part of an educator’s toolkit, edtech possesses the ability to strengthen student engagement while encouraging academic success. The rise of technology in classrooms is surfacing new pedagogical best practices that encourage better collaboration, improved interactivity, and greater flexibility for educators and their students. These methods and their accompanying skills are likely to have long-lasting implications for educators who have adopted both in-class and online teaching responsibilities.
The 21st Century Digital Skills report, which draws on a series of interviews from subject matter experts across Canada, highlights the changing role of the K–12 educator to that of a “facilitator” of learning, which is a fundamental departure from the long-standing “sage on the stage” paradigm. As indicated by interview respondents, educational technologies have quickened the pace of this transition while also challenging outdated policies surrounding the use of cell phones and other technologies in the classroom.
This shift calls on educators to cultivate new technical skills, but it also requires strong “human skills.” Study interviewees also noted that human skills (which was preferred to the term “soft skills,” and includes critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability) are not vulnerable to the impacts of automation, artificial intelligence, or technology obsolescence.
These skills and competencies are reaching new and more nuanced levels as technology deepens considerations around, for example, critical thinking and media literacy. As one educator in the study stated:
With summer approaching, teachers who are interested in improving their technical skills can take advantage of a wide array of online courses in digital technologies, which include media literacy.
An analysis of study interviews identified the following list of both technical and human skills, ranked in descending order by frequency of mentions:
Digital literacy Typically refers to competency in using core technologies (this can range from the use of search engines, office productivity software, basic operating system functions, up to database usage, coding, and computational thinking) and involves the ability to find, evaluate, create, and share content online. As the world increasingly adopts digital technologies, higher standards of digital literacy are needed to fully participate. Educators can work to improve their digital literacy through various available online training resources, by participating on various platforms, and as part of professional learning communities.
Information/media literacy This involves understanding how and why a media message is constructed – as well as its impact. In addition to accessing media and information, there is also the need to be able to analyze it critically, evaluate different media, and to ultimately be able to use it effectively. Educators can find a variety of media literacy resources, curriculum guides, lesson plans, and video tutorials through provincial teaching accreditation bodies (e.g. Ontario College of Teachers) teacher associations, individual school boards or online at places such as mediasmarts.ca.
Learning Management Systems (LMS) fluency and awareness As teachers are increasingly required to use LMS environments such as Moodle and D2L to deliver teaching materials, receive assignments, and communicate with students and parents, it is crucial they feel comfortable navigating this software. In addition to training provided by school districts, there are professional development conferences, web tutorials, and online courses through Coursera or edX.
Digital engagement Although “engagement” is typically understood to be linked to interpersonal communication, this term was often used by the educators we interviewed in discussing retention rates and maintaining student attention while using learning management systems or social media platforms such as Tik Tok, Snapchat, etc. It is not necessary for educators to become avid users of these social media platforms, but it is helpful for them to have an awareness of these growing trends and how they fit into the larger digital ecosystem.
Data and analytics competencies Digitization has greatly increased the amount of data available to decision makers, and this leads to increased interest in the use of analytics to make better “evidence-based decisions” and identify patterns that were not previously apparent. This is definitely the case in business and government, but it is also increasingly relevant in education. Increasingly, learning management systems are integrating data analytics for personalized learning insights as well as data dashboards (Gunawardena, 2017). There is a growing field of data analytics training at postsecondary institutions as well as online courses for classroom teachers.1
Technology use in the classroom today varies greatly among educators, their schools, regions, and even provinces, but best practices have emerged. Study interviewees and education experts have highlighted the following:
While digital skills and new technology tools are important – and teachers need to receive both training and support to effectively work with these technologies – the subject experts consulted for ICTC’s 21st Century Digital Skills study noted that digital tools are part of a much larger educational transition. In this evolution, educators facilitate student development based on their individual needs and interests to help keep pace with a rapidly changing world.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, June 2021
The 21st Century Digital Skills report also includes a focus on educator training and support, an exploration of the top technical, academic, and human skills required of K–12 students, and examples of innovative technologies being leveraged in Canadian classrooms. https://bit.ly/3tC7mM5
1 See, for example, www.edx.org/course/analytics-for-the-classroom-teacher
Gunawardena, A. (2017). Brief survey of analytics in K12 and higher education. International Journal on Innovations in Online Education. doi: 10.1615/IntJInnovOnlineEdu.v1.i1.80
This department is generously sponsored by IPEVO
www.ipevo.com
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.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) K-12 students and staff experience lower levels of wellbeing. Yet, a growing focus on wellbeing approaches such as mindfulness, social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and self-regulation can have harmful effects on racialized students and educators and may lead to cultural appropriation (i.e. adopting aspects of a culture that’s not your own). These approaches to wellbeing often don’t take into consideration the unique experiences and perspectives of BIPOC students and staff.
Wellbeing is systemic. When wellbeing is understood as one individual’s experience, it fails to account for the harmful effects of systemic racism, White supremacy, and colonialism that create unwelcoming, exclusionary, and unsafe environments for BIPOC students. This approach absolves systems from taking any responsibility in creating and perpetuating harm, which could look like:
1) There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Place identity – such as race, gender, sexuality, abilities, social class, and faith – at the center of approaches to student and staff wellbeing.
2) Avoid taking individual approaches to wellbeing that place both the source and solution of wellbeing with individuals and instead take a more systemic approach. This includes identifying and disrupting structures and policies that have had disproportionate effects on access, opportunity, and outcomes for BIPOC students and staff.
3) Connect with students, staff, families, and communities in meaningful ways to understand the experiences of institutional harm (e.g. residential schools).
4) Embed multiple understandings and approaches of wellbeing that value the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual needs of students and staff.
By not acknowledging the depth and breadth of systemic racism, we end up focusing on symptoms rather than the root causes of achievement and wellbeing, while expecting individual students and staff members to overcome the numerous structural barriers placed before them. When schools take a systemic approach, they instead identify and take action to change the ways in which student and staff wellbeing is impacted by anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and other forms of racism. Every student and educator deserves to feel safe, valued, and know that they belong at school.
Anti-racism: the active identification and elimination of racism and intersecting forms of oppression, by changing systems, structures, policies, practices and attitudes, for the equitable redistribution of power and resources.
Streaming means that students are placed into groups defined by their ability levels. Students may be grouped by ability either for a subject (for example for mathematics or reading) or for all or almost all their instruction. Students’ assignment to an ability group may be temporary, changing during the year, or relatively permanent.
White supremacy refers to a political, economic and cultural system in which Whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of White superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of White dominance and non-White subordination are daily re-enacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings (Ansley as cited in Gillborn, 2016, p. 48).
Colonialism: systems and practices that seek to impose the will of one people on another and to use the resources of the imposed people for the benefit of the imposer. Colonialism can operate within political, sociological, economic and cultural values and systems of a place even after occupation by colonizers has ended (Assante, 2006).
Dei, G.J.S. (2008). Schooling as community: Race, schooling, and the education of African youth. Journal of Black Studies, 38(3), 346-366.
Dion, S. (2014). The listening stone: Learning from the Ontario Ministry of Education’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit–focused collaborative inquiry 2013-2014. http://www.ontariodirectors.ca/downloads/Listening_Stone/Dion_LS_Final_Report%20Sept_10-2014-2.pdf
James, C. E. (2012). Students “at risk”: Stereotyping and the schooling of black boys. Urban Education, 47(2), 464-494.
James, C.E. & Turner, T. (2017). Towards race equity in education: The schooling of Black students in the Greater Toronto Area. https://edu.yorku.ca/files/2017/04/Towards-Race-Equity-in-Education-April-2017.pdf?x60002
Thompson, R. (2020, Sept. 29). Addressing trauma in the K-12 workplace: The impact of racial trauma on Black and non-white educators. https://www.edcan.ca/articles/addressing-racism-in-the-k-12-workplace/
In 2015, all 193 countries of the United Nations along with scientists and political leaders agreed to partner together to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030. The SDGs are a set of 17 goals aimed at achieving peace and prosperity worldwide by addressing pressing issues such as climate change, quality education, and poverty, to name a few. Issues such as these are expected to have devastating impacts on people and the planet if not addressed. For example, climate change is expected to lead to global challenges in this lifetime that no single country alone can resolve. Approximately 42% of the world’s population is currently under 25-years-old, children and youth are at most at risk of experiencing the impacts of these issues, making schools an ideal place for learning about the SDGs.
Choose one or a few SDGs to start with when planning class activities and discussions. Each SDG also comes paired with “Global Targets,” which can make them more manageable to address.
Students are often already passionate about global issues, and the SDGs provide a way for them to learn how to become active global citizens. Take the opportunity to learn about what your students are passionate about and build activities, projects, and discussions around these.
The SDGs can enhance the curriculum by making space for learning about global issues and including perspectives from people around the world, which are often left out of national curriculums. There are many resources available for teachers that can be used as content for teaching the SDGs across subject areas.
There are programs where you can partner with other classrooms locally or in other countries to work on projects that address global issues. This gives students an engaging opportunity to learn from other students who have different perspectives and to see how their actions can impact other people – even people halfway across the world.
In an increasingly interconnected world where local and regional decisions can have global impacts on world economies, policies, and societies, it’s evermore important for countries to find ways to collaborate on issues that affect us all. Teaching about the SDGs offers meaningful learning opportunities and encourages students to discover their role in solving local, regional, and global issues. As today’s children and youth will become the next generation of voters and leaders, it is necessary to equip them with the knowledge and skills to make sound decisions in an increasingly complex world – and the SDGs provide a framework to do just that.
As the financial landscape becomes increasingly complex (e.g. debt repayments, mortgages, line of credit, retirement savings), children and youth require a wide range of skills and knowledge to be able to successfully make informed choices about money that will serve them well as adults. School is crucial in strengthening students’ financial literacy skills including practical lessons about money. Research has shown that financial education tends to improve financial confidence and increases positive changes in financial behaviour such as saving and investing money. This is important for overall financial freedom and wellbeing: feeling in control of your finances and having the flexibility to make choices that allow you to enjoy life.
Financial skills are complex, but having conversations with children early on can help them understand the value of money. One easy way to teach this is to encourage them to think about what they could buy if they were to save their money, instead of spending it on toys or a treat. Metaphors like, “Money does not grow on trees, but if you put it in a bank, it could grow like a tree” are good ways of communicating about money to young children.
Learning through practice and receiving feedback, especially negative feedback, results in better learning than simply learning from a textbook. For example, using a mock credit card or creating a mock investment portfolio for students to track. Parents can also get children and youth involved with tracking household bills and expenses, which can help create healthy financial habits.
Financial education can easily be integrated into existing subjects such as math or social sciences. Using games and apps can make learning about money more engaging and allow students to learn how to make informed decisions, receive feedback, and understand the consequences of their choices (whether positive or negative).
Students will soon be making independent financial decisions. The last two years of high school is the right time to ramp up your efforts by getting specific about debit cards, bills, debt, budgeting, and savings. This is also the time to engage in deeper conversations about money and consider the social and cultural taboos (i.e. the belief that talking about money signals vulnerability or feelings of being judged) that prevent families from discussing money matters. Fostering openness will allow for better confidence in financial decision-making.
Building up students’ financial literacy is critical not only to their understanding of personal finances, but also to their role in the local and global economy as consumers, employees, and employers. Teachers and parents have an important role in equipping students with the knowledge and skills to make healthy and informed financial decisions. Setting simple, age-appropriate goals that focus on the value of money, the importance of budgeting and saving, and evaluating the consequences of financial decisions, sets the foundation for students to become financially confident adults.
Child and Youth Finance International: https://childfinanceinternational.org/
Financial Literacy in Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/programs/financial-literacy.html
Global Financial Literacy Excellence Centre: https://gflec.org/
FuturFund: http://www.futurfund.org/
PlayMoolah: http://www.playmoolah.com/
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Blue, Levon, Peter Grootenboer, Mark Brimble (2014). Financial literacy education in the curriculum: Making the grade or missing the mark?, International Review of Economics Education, Volume 16, Part A, Pages 51-62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iree.2014.07.005.
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Soman, D (2017), Why financial Literacy should be taught in every school, The Conversation https://theconversation.com/why-financial-literacy-should-be-taught-in-every-school-88458
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The Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Service Centre (CSSMB) is located in the west end of Montreal. Covering over 100 schools and institutions, it is Quebec’s second largest school service centre (CSS). The territory served is divided into seven networks, each encompassing one or two high schools and their feeder elementary schools. This structure ensures consistency in the interventions for client groups living in relatively homogeneous areas. Administrators and educators from both levels maintain close ties, facilitating the students’ transition from elementary to high school. An example of this is Amène ton parent au théâtre, an initiative in which elementary students, accompanied by their mother or father, are invited to attend a bullying prevention activity presented by high-school students.
In addition, the CSSMB relies on the insights of a small team of statisticians who closely monitor hundreds of indicators, notably those associated with the 17 goals listed in its Plan d’engagement vers la réussite (Commitment to Success Plan). This information is valuable because it helps us quickly identify and address our students’ academic and social vulnerabilities.
The activities carried out in the CSSMB’s 102 institutions interconnect with many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations. In this article, we will focus primarily on Goal #4: Quality Education.
Quebec’s student population has changed dramatically in the past few decades, especially in Montreal. In the CSSMB’s elementary and high schools, over 80 percent of students are first- or second-generation immigrants. This diversity creates a number of challenges when it comes to organizing educational services. For example, many recently arrived immigrants are unable to speak French, their new language for school and socializing. During the 2019-2020 school year, 4,500 students attended “welcome” classes, which are designed to teach French while fostering the academic and social integration of non-French-speaking young people.
If we are to provide a quality education to all (SGD 4), notably students with diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences, we must rethink the way in which educational services are delivered. This process requires in-depth reflection, adapted tools and, ultimately, a review of existing practices. We have successfully met this challenge because we have the highest graduation and qualification rates of any Quebec school service centre – not bad for a CSS where students speak over 150 different mother tongues!
To efficiently coordinate the activities of all the experts working with our students, we have created reference documents and frameworks to define everyone’s role. These resources are inspired by research in various areas to ensure that best practices are integrated and applied. In 2015, we published Vivre-ensemble en français (Living Together in French). This document offers guidelines for learning how to live together in French, clarifies some key concepts, and provides tools to better focus activities (CSMB, 2015, p. 9), while taking into account the school’s diversity, which is integral to providing all students with access to a quality education.
Together, our reference documents and frameworks have enabled us to implement a shared vision of an organization that supports the school experience of all its students, which is our primary objective. These tools establish a culture of accountability and co-operation among those who work to support the success of all students. In this way, the responsibility for teaching and monitoring learners does not fall to a single individual.
Some of our reference documents are also inspired by the tiered approach to intervention. This model, also known as Response to Intervention (RTI), is a system that prevents problems, identifies necessary interventions and improves the chances of success for all students (Bissonnette et al., 2020).
Although educational success includes success in school, it involves more than just obtaining a diploma or qualifications. It means encouraging children to reach their full potential intellectually, emotionally, socially, and physically. It also aims to instil values, attitudes, and obligations to help students become responsible citizens who are prepared to play an active role in society (Government of Québec, 2017).
As mentioned earlier, a majority of our students come from linguistically and ethnoculturally diverse backgrounds; increasingly, our staff reflect this diversity as well. While immensely enriching, this reality generates some everyday issues. To address these issues, the CSSMB created the Centre for Pedagogical Intervention in Diverse Environments (CIPCD, cipcd.ca) in 2012. Initially serving the “living together in French” orientation of our 2014-2018 strategic plan, the CIPCD then shifted its orientation to “provide an inclusive, welcoming environment open to the world and the future” in accordance with the CSSMB’s 2018-2022 Commitment to Success Plan. This innovative initiative is unique because we are the only CSS to have our own applied research centre affiliated with various partners.
The CIPCD has six working groups to study challenges related to ethnocultural and linguistic diversity in schools, each with its own priority focus. A university researcher and CSSMB administrator or educational consultant are assigned to each group, which has three primary mandates: research, transfer of scientific knowledge, and training.
Focus 1: Teaching French in a multi-ethnic and multilingual environment
Since 2012, various projects have been carried out to address issues of diversity at the CSSMB. Working Group 1 was created because of the very linguistically diverse student population. French is not the mother tongue of over 60 percent of our elementary and high-school students. This working group focuses on the overall problem of adapting pedagogical practices when teaching French to bilingual and multilingual learners for whom French is a second, or even third, language.
In 2015, the CSSMB and Université de Montréal launched a continuing education project called Taking Action in Multi-ethnic and Multilingual Environments with Preschool and Daycare Students. One outcome of this initiative was to increase staff awareness of the importance of recognizing and acknowledging the different languages spoken by students (e.g. Festival “Pluri-Pluri”). This project has changed our perceptions of languages of origin and the need for inclusive practices.
Focus 2: Academic success and school-family-community relations
As noted earlier, over 80 percent of our students are first- or second-generation immigrants. For a variety of reasons related to their migratory experience or that of their parents, these students may face numerous social vulnerabilities and/or academic challenges. Working Group 2 concentrates its activities on the twofold challenge of academic success and school-family-community relations.
In the last few years, the group has organized a number of activities. Several CIPCD-affiliated researchers carried out a study entitled Intercultural Climate and Educational Success of Immigrant Students. This research aimed to evaluate the state of the intercultural climate in several multi-ethnic schools in Quebec (including two at the CSSMB) and examine the impact of this climate on the educational success of immigrant students. Ultimately, a diagnostic tool must be developed to help administrators assess their school’s intercultural climate, as it is a key factor in supporting the educational success of immigrant students.
Focus 3: Vulnerable immigrant populations and psychosocial intervention in educational settings
Recent immigrant students entering the Quebec school system sometimes arrive with emotional baggage that includes grief and trauma. Working Group 3 studies the psychological well-being and academic success of these students, particularly those in psychological distress.
During the 2016-2017 school year, an action research project provided insight on the academic and social integration of young Syrian refugees. Discussion groups were formed in welcome classes to help these students develop a sense of well-being and belonging. At the end of the project, a guide on organizing discussion groups in schools, Mener des groupes de parole en contexte scolaire (2017), was published for school practitioners. Professionals in many of our schools now use this guide to organize such groups so students can express themselves on various topics like death and violence. These groups are designed to foster the psychological well-being of young people in school and, consequently, their educational success.
Focus 4: Inclusive education and intercultural understanding
Working Group 4 was created to address the interpersonal relationship challenges generated by the diversity of our CSS. Its work focuses on making the concept of “living together” a reality in our schools, notably by explaining the foundations of the inclusive perspective. It also looks at activities to promote intercultural understanding and seeks to document their impact.
In 2015, this working group developed a pedagogical guide to help school staff who would like to discuss sensitive topics with students: Aborder les sujets sensibles avec les élèves. This practical tool can be used on a daily basis to discuss topics, whether related to diversity or not, that can provoke discomfort or sometimes heated class discussions.
Focus 5: Socio-professional integration of recently immigrated staff and work relationships in a multi-ethnic environment
More and more CSSMB staff members have been educated outside Quebec, a reality that creates challenges with regard to their socio-professional integration and the school climate. In the last few years, teachers have been trained as peer mentors to help welcome their foreign-trained colleagues, and school administrators have been invited to awareness training on the topic. Teachers educated outside the province have also taken part in group discussions to learn more about the profession in Quebec (challenges and advantages). Finally, this work has led to the publication of a guide for school administrators on facilitating the socio-professional integration of foreign-trained teachers: Faciliter l’intégration socioprofessionnelle du personnel enseignant formé à l’étranger (2019).
Focus 6: Vocational training for youths and adults with an immigrant background
Ethnocultural and linguistic diversity is also increasingly present in vocational training (VT), raising a number of issues particular to this educational sector. In addition to studying the pathways of VT students from ethnocultural minority groups, the members of this working group examine the problems these students face when acquiring skills and trying to enter the job market. In the last few years, the group has led projects to raise awareness of the realities experienced by young people from immigrant backgrounds and revisit the practices supporting their occupational integration, for example, in internship settings.
***
The makeup of our student population has been transformed over the past few decades. Children named Bertrand, Roberge and Lauzon now sit alongside those named Traoré, Chang and Hernandez, primarily because the Charter of the French Language dictates that the majority of new immigrants must attend French-speaking schools. These students come from around the world. Upon arrival, many of them spend one or two years in a welcome class, discovering the language of Félix Leclerc, before joining a regular classroom where they will be successful.
This is possible because we have taken measures to ensure their success, notably by creating more partnerships with university academics. We offer these experts a vast testing ground and, in return, they share what they learn with us. The results speak for themselves: at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, the graduation and qualification rate of our students was ten points higher than the average for all French-speaking school service centres in Quebec. We can therefore safely infer that we are on the right track!
Photo : Adobe Stock
Read other articles from this issue
Bissonnette, S., Bouchard, C., St-Georges, N., Gauthier, C., & Bocquillon, M. (2020). Un modèle de réponse à l’intervention (RàI) comportementale : Le soutien au comportement positif (SCP). Enfance en difficulté, 7, 129–150.
Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (2015). Référentiel d’accompagnement vivre-ensemble en français. Service des ressources éducatives.
www.csmb.qc.ca/~/media/Files/PDF/CSMB/veef/Referentiel_Vivre-ensemble.ashx
Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (2018). Plan d’engagement vers la réussite 2018-2022. https://www.csmb.qc.ca/fr-CA/csmb/pevr.aspx
Festival « Pluri-Pluri » à l’école Terre-des-jeunes.
www.elodil.umontreal.ca/videos/presentation/video/eveil-aux-langues-et-aux-cultures-a-lecole-ter/
Government of Québec. (2017). Policy on educational success: A love of learning, a chance to succeed. Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur.
www.education.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/site_web/documents/PSG/politiques_orientations/politique_reussite_educative_10juillet_A_1.pdf
Hirsch, S., Audet, G., & Turcotte, M. (2015). Aborder les sujets sensibles avec les élèves — Guide pédagogique. Centre d’intervention pédagogique en contexte de diversité, Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys.
https://cipcd.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CSMB_-Guide_sujets-sensibles_final.-1.pdf
Amène ton parent au théâtre.
www.mfa.gouv.qc.ca/fr/intimidation/prix/Pages/Ecoles-secondaires-Saint-Georges-Saint-Laurent-2018.aspx
Morrissette, J. (2019). Faciliter l’intégration socioprofessionnelle du personnel enseignant formé à l’étranger. Guide à l’intention des directions d’établissement. Centre d’intervention pédagogique en contexte de diversité, Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys.
https://cipcd.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GuideFaciliterInte%CC%81gration_VF_HauteRe%CC%81so_190708_pagesSimples.pdf
Papazian-Zohrabian, G., Lemire, V., Mamprin, C., Turpin-Samson, A., & Aoun, R. (2017). Mener des groupes de parole en contexte scolaire. Guide pour les enseignants et les professionnels. Centre d’intervention pédagogique en contexte de diversité, Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys et Université de Montréal.
https://cipcd.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mener-des-groupes-de-parole-en-contexte-scolaire-Guide-pour-les-enseignants-et-les-professionnels.pdf
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
A team of researchers from the University of Winnipeg 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 surveys in April, June, and September of 2020, and several follow-up interviews, the researchers were able to gain a detailed understanding of the demands, resources, and stressors experienced by teachers, including their strategies to cope.
Note: These findings are part two of a survey series on supporting teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey responses were first collected in April/May 2020, when teachers had just begun to teach remotely (click here to check out the first set of survey results!). The survey was administered a second time in mid-June 2020. Data was collected once more in September 2020, when students (in most provinces) were physically back in school practicing safety protocols related to COVID-19.
According to recent data from Ontario, over one-third of students in grades 7-12 report experiencing moderate-to-serious levels of psychological distress, with rates increasing across grades. Despite this, about one-third of students (39%) report that they rarely or never talk to their parents about their problems or feelings. This isn’t surprising as adolescence is often marked by a shift, with youth turning to friends for support rather than parents. Still, parents are the cornerstone in supporting their child’s well-being.
Parents often want to provide advice to their kids or fix their challenging feelings. It’s important that parents really listen to what their teens have to say, try to understand their perspective, and validate their feelings. Parents can recognize how their child is feeling without reinforcing unhealthy or unhelpful behaviours. For example, rather than dismissing disappointment (e.g. “You don’t need to get upset about not having your phone”), parents can validate and acknowledge these feelings (e.g. “I know you’re disappointed that you can’t have your phone right now”).
Kids and parents have busy lives, which often means they are limited in the amount of quality time they spend together. Finding time for positive connections and interactions (e.g. family meals or time in the car) is critical to supporting well-being. Focus on positive communication and feedback during these times and avoid criticism, which can have negative impacts on self-esteem and mood.
This means parents knowing where their children are and getting to know their friends, which has been found to protect against a variety of risk behaviours (e.g. alcohol and other drug use).
An authoritative parenting style has been found to best support healthy development.
This means parenting that involves both high demands (i.e. setting limits on their child’s behaviours) and high responsiveness (i.e. warm and sensitive to their child’s needs). It’s important that parents explain their reasons for enforcing boundaries rather than using punishment (i.e. “do it…or else”) or power (i.e. “because I said so”).
From an early age, kids learn how to take care of their mental health and well-being by watching their parents. The best way for parents to teach kids and teens how to manage stress, cope with setbacks, and engage in self-care is for parents to do these things themselves.
Research shows that the quality of a parent-child relationship can have a significant impact – positive or negative – on their child’s mental health and well-being. While middle- and high-school children tend to seek support from their peer groups, it’s important for parents to continue supporting and promoting the well-being of their child by setting healthy boundaries, modeling healthy coping strategies, and having open conversations that acknowledge and validate their child’s feelings.
Baumrind, D. (2013). Authoritative parenting revisited: History and current status. In R. E. Larzelere, A.
Morris, & A. W. Harrist (Eds.), Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development(p. 11–34). American Psychological Association
Boak, A., Hamilton, H. A., Adlaf, E. M., Henderson, J. L., & Mann, R. E. (2018). The mental health and well-being of Ontario students, 1991-2017: Detailed findings from the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) (CAMH Research Document Series No. 47). Toronto, ON: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Cripps, K., & Zyromski, B. (2009). Adolescents’ psychological well-being and perceived parental involvement: Implications for parental involvement in middle schools. RMLE Online, 33(4), 1-13.
Fan, W., & Williams, C. M. (2010). The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self‐efficacy, engagement and intrinsic motivation. Educational Psychology, 30(1), 53-74.
Kerr, M., Stattin, H., & Burk, W. J. (2010). A reinterpretation of parental monitoring in longitudinal perspective. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20(1), 39-64.
Liga, F., Inguglia, C., Gugliandolo, M. C., Ingoglia, S., & Costa, S. (2020). The socialization of coping strategies in adolescence: The modeling role of parents. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 33(1), 47-58.
Morris, A. S., Silk, J. S., Steinberg, L., Myers, S. S., & Robinson, L. R. (2007). The role of the family context in the development of emotion regulation. Social development, 16(2), 361-388.
National Center on Addiction and Substance Use (CASA). (2012, September). The importance of family dinners VII. New York: Columbia University.
Roberts, H. (2017). Listening to children: And hearing them. In Research with children (pp. 154-171). Routledge.
Shenk, C. E., & Fruzzetti, A. E. (2011). The impact of validating and invalidating responses on emotional reactivity. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 30(2), 163-183.
Zolten, K., & Long, N. (2006). Parent/child communication. Little Rock, AR: Center for Effective Parenting / Arkansas Home Visiting Training Institute.
“I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.” – Arne Duncan
The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified inequities in our school system – barriers based within poverty, language, ability, and racism. But Stephen Covey argued that organizations could potentially arrive in a better place after a crisis than prior to it having occurred, a concept he called “opportunity solving” (2004). Will educational organizations make use of this opportunity? Through surveys and representative interviews of 1,668 Canadian teachers while they pivoted to remote learning and then back to the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw examples of actions by teachers, administrators and parents that set the stage for a better, more equitable kind of Canadian schooling.
Teachers who participated in our study let us know that their foremost concern was for the welfare of their students. The stress caused by the quick pivot to remote learning and public displays of new online pedagogies in front of administrators and parents – along with their early stumbles and self-critique – was a distant second concern. One teacher told us,
“My biggest stress right now is not knowing about the well-being of all the students – how are kids coping, how are families coping? That’s another aspect of it that’s hard. I’m not even really worried about what we’re teaching – that’s the last of my worries in some senses.”
The priority placed by teachers on student welfare above instruction points to two important foundations of our current educational system. First, the role of “teacher” is much more than one of providing academic knowledge and skills to students, having become conflated with many other functions in children’s lives, such as ensuring they are physically and emotionally safe and healthy. Second, this responsibility is one that teachers and administrators willingly accept and embrace. Of her students’ reliance on her and the classroom community, one teacher said, “It’s nice how much they miss it.” The acceptance by teachers and administrators that they had a role to play in their students’ welfare was evidenced through their actions as well as their stated feelings, as will be shown in the examples below.
It became evident very early in the pandemic that some children’s needs – both in terms of education and well-being– were not being met. Teachers shared with us their concerns about inequities in access to online learning that challenged the sustainability of schooling for some of their students. These included children who lived in poverty, children whose parents were unable to assist due to work obligations and students with lack of access to the language of instruction. Teachers were also worried about students whose additional learning needs required specialized planning and programming, which was difficult to support outside the classroom and school.
Teachers and administrators organized quickly and creatively to address these needs. One teacher described how school buses in his province were repurposed to drop off and pick up homework. Other teachers participated in delivering hampers to students’ homes to replace the nutrition programs typically offered in their schools: As one teacher from the Maritimes explained, “There are a lot of families who are really struggling, and [the pandemic] has made it extra hard for them. They might not have a meal that day, so we’re reaching out to them and delivering food.” One administrator in Winnipeg quickly put the school division’s tablets into the hands of his students in their homes and then funded $40,000 for Internet for those homes. “Anything we can do to keep kids on pace with their peers, making progress, and socially engaged with their teachers and peers is just the right thing to do,” explained Brian O’Leary, Superintendent of Seven Oaks School Division. Additionally, a response planning team of Manitoba educators and administrators worked together with provincial officials to quickly gather resources to create an online repository for parents trying to support differentiated learning taking place at home. One team member said, “These plans, resources, supports, and activities adopted key messaging and practices to guide both educators and families during a time of uncertainty.”
These inspirational stories highlight the commitment and partnership of educators, families and communities, and it would be tempting to call them heroes. Indeed, their work is inspirational. However, the need for these “heroic” acts is prompted not by the pandemic, but by inequities revealed within the foundation of the wider social safety net. These “cracks” have for too long been silently filled by educators, and the broadening disparities continue to be addressed by the goodwill of caring education professionals during the pandemic. Nonetheless, teachers are tired. One told us, “I feel inadequate, if that makes sense, in my ability to teach over the phone.” Another said, “I found I was almost getting depressed and felt completely helpless basically – [from] the inability to help the kids like I typically would.” A common sentiment was that teachers just wanted to go back to the way things were before the pandemic: “Just let us go back to school. I miss [my students], and I want them to know that I miss them.” But to return to school as it was before the pandemic would be a mistake. While we collectively yearn to return to our former and familiar systems, we are now called upon to opportunity solve to ensure that the lessons taught to us by COVID-19 are used to build an enhanced, equitable, and more robust Canadian school system.
The pandemic has provided the opportunity and the impetus to transform our current practices in education. Change is uncomfortable, yet necessary for growth. In his latest book, The Catalyst, Jonah Berger (2020) explores barriers to change, and his findings articulate the factors that make it easy for us to be lured back to the past, especially after a worldwide pandemic. They include the endowment of value we place on what is familiar, our discomfort with the distance from past practice, and the uncertainty of moving forward in a new way. Given these barriers and teachers’ current “pandemic fatigue,” it just seems more comfortable to restore our former educational system rather than to try something different… once again.
Michael Mindzak (2020) challenges us to “shift our gaze to reconceptualise contemporary education.” Rather than looking at how we can return as quickly as possible to the way things were, he suggests we consider how things can be approached differently going forward. Mindzak encourages us to re-examine expectations in the current educational narrative – such as the myth of finite resources resulting in educators having to do more with less, and the belief that formal learning can only occur in a classroom or designated school building. Ultimately, he asks us to rethink the purpose of education within this re-framed context. Navigating a pandemic has allowed us to see first-hand the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in our current system. Likewise, Fullan et al. (2020) describe the opportunity for Canadian educators to harness this knowledge and move from a period of disruption and transition to “re-imagining” – not restoration. Rather than focusing on ways to return our educational organizations to places that clearly have structural challenges, we are called upon to opportunity solve new systems built on solid foundations of sustainable equity and well-being. With equity as a guiding principle, creating a new Canadian social/school system where every child is safe, nourished, cared for, and has access to technology is an action-oriented pathway.
The abrupt and disruptive changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have effectively propelled education from a zone of crisis and uncertainty to one involving learning and growth. Fullan et al. say that what has emerged in the process is recognition that we are no longer working on provisional solutions for the short term. Rather, educators are refocused on enduring, student-centred technological innovations that combine the most effective approaches for both classroom and remote engagement – a sustainable and dynamic hybrid learning model. In this regard, the pandemic crisis can be viewed as an opportunity taken for improvement in education, bringing the essential levels of creativity and inspiration to bear, and ensuring that school communities are in a better place both now and in the future.
“It’s the long game we’re in. And the way it’s played will keep changing. Adapt and respond. Use compassion and the best available science. Pivot quickly when necessary. Accept that life is different now. Keep calm and carry on. Reset not return.”
– Senator Stan Kutcher
Read a more detailed summary of the authors’ research survey here:
https://edcan.atavist.com/teacher-covid-survey
Berger, J. (2020). The catalyst: how to change anyone’s mind. Simon & Schuster.
Covey, S. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people. Free Press.
Fullan, M., Quinn, J., Drummy, M., & Gardner, M. (2020). Education reimagined: The future of learning. https://edudownloads.azureedge.net/msdownloads/Microsoft-EducationReimagined-Paper.pdf
Mindzak, M. (2020). COVID-19 and the ongoing problem of educational efficiency. Brock Journal of Education, 29(2), 18–23. https://journals.library.brocku.ca/brocked
Photo: Adobe Stock
Inclusion, specifically in terms of disabilities, affects all teachers, students, and classrooms. Within Canada, roughly 13 percent of K-12 students are considered disabled, a number that climbs to 25 percent when taking into account students requiring significant learning supports (Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2018). Commonly, preservice teachers receive training on policies, procedures, and strategies for inclusion as part of their teacher education. Armed with this training, teachers (novice and experienced alike) are expected to “do” inclusion and support a gamut of diverse student needs. Teaching practices are shaped by this training combined with teachers’ own beliefs, values, and experiences, yet there is less clarity in academic literature on how teachers integrate their perspectives and training in coming to understand inclusion. This crossroads was the focus of my research as both a contribution to scholarship and to support preservice teachers themselves in developing an understanding of inclusion.
As an instructor of a Bachelor of Education course on inclusion and having worked with students with disabilities over the years, I wondered how preservice teachers grappled with and made sense of their training and what they thought inclusion meant from their own perspectives. Having seen first-hand how a teacher’s understanding of inclusion can impact students’ experiences and learning, I knew this was an area that warranted further investigation. Much of the literature I reviewed considered teachers’ overall beliefs, sentiments, and attitudes toward inclusion and disabilities. However, I was struck by the limited attention paid to the finer-grain aspects of preservice teachers’ perspectives and how they came to develop their understanding.
Although I have not defined either disability or inclusion, these terms have likely evoked from readers (such as yourself) a swirl of meanings and assumptions. In the same way, without explanation, my mention of a typical K-12 Canadian classroom likely prompts a common set of assumptions about what a classroom is, what happens there, and who is there. Chances are most people would imagine a classroom having a teacher, students, desks, and chairs. In such a classroom, students likely take part in learning activities and assessments, and are expected to follow established behavioural norms. While the details of these characteristics will differ from person to person, the commonalities make up what Dorothy Holland (1998) and colleagues called a “figured world.” This concept encapsulates the socially negotiated and recognized, taken-for-granted assumptions about an environment, its participants and activities, and what outcomes are valued over others within a context. Figured worlds vary in scope and type, such as a figured world of schooling, parenting, corporate accounting, or Alcoholics Anonymous. Importantly, figured worlds shape how people engage with daily life and are useful for understanding how people assume orientations to participate in a given context. They are how a person can know what to expect and do within a classroom versus, say, a zoo. (Of course, classrooms and zoos can sometimes feel like they have a lot in common!)
Figured worlds are durable but not static. They are in a continuous process of being refigured and renegotiated by their participants, thus making it a useful framing given that neither inclusion nor teaching and learning occur in a vacuum or strictly follow a script. As well, a person’s experiences and participation in one world influence how that person comes to understand and participate in another. This space, where preservice teachers negotiate previous understandings of inclusion and/or develop new ones, was the focus of my research. I wanted to pull back the curtain on what preservice teachers understood inclusion to be and how they formed that understanding. In addition, I wanted preservice teachers themselves to reflect on their perspectives and discuss them with peers, learn from each other, and couch their perspectives among their peers.
To help make this process visible, at least partially, my colleagues and I tasked the 350+ preservice teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education course with creating drawings of inclusion. Intentionally, the task was open-ended. Students were supplied paper and markers and had approximately 30 minutes to create their drawings. Why drawings? The goal was to encourage preservice teachers to go beyond repeating inclusive buzzwords. Moreover, drawings offered a tangible way to externalize students’ thinking and acted as a tool to think with when discussing their ideas with peers. In addition, drawings are unique in showing multiple ideas and concepts in relation to each other simultaneously on a page, compared to a written form where ideas are presented more linearly. For instance, a drawing can more easily show how different groups of students and resources might be positioned in a classroom in relation to each other and the teacher.
Given the range of drawing skill sets among the preservice teachers, they were also asked include a written description to explain ideas or concepts they were attempting to convey through the drawing. In small groups, the preservice teachers shared and discussed their drawings. All drawings were scanned and uploaded to an online gallery accessible to everyone enrolled in the course. The instructors and I reviewed the drawings to get a glimpse into students’ thinking and we referred back to them during in-class discussions.
The drawings were delightful, ranging from depictions of classrooms to abstract shapes and metaphors. They were diverse but also shared common themes.
Accommodations and resources were common among drawings of classroom environments. These included supports such as wheelchairs, access to print and audio versions of books, visual magnification devices, various types of seating, and options to use visual or tactile learning materials. These depictions took a predominantly tool-driven approach to inclusion by offering students resources. Perhaps unsurprisingly, such approaches echo traditional perspectives toward disabilities that continue to underpin systemic structures and practices within education today – specifically, the medical model of disability that relies on matching diagnoses to supports and developing individualized education plans to document and track students’ progress. Critically, such diagnoses are often necessary to prove eligibility for resources and access to government funding.
Also common to the drawings were students depicted as holding hands or collaborating on learning activities. This framing of inclusion tended to emphasize togetherness and a sense of belonging among diverse people. Collaboration was also conveyed in two ways: as students helping one another and as a way to strengthen learning and benefit everyone by combining people with different attributes and experiences. These ideas seem to align with contemporary theories of education such as social constructivism and generally fostering interactions among people as part of learning.
In contrast to these, several drawings took a more holistic perspective by describing inclusion as a system. For instance, drawings of a forest as a metaphor for how each student represented various elements of a forest (e.g. rocks, stumps, trees, shrubs, soil) and each element was interconnected and collectively made up an ecosystem of inclusion.
In terms of what inspired their drawings, in interviews after the course, the participants often referenced their own experiences of schooling. Some spoke of challenges they noticed or experienced as students themselves and used the drawings to contrast or improve upon them. Others spoke from the perspective of being parents and noticing their own children’s experiences and how their children’s classrooms looked and what resources were available to support student needs. Still others admitted limited experience or knowledge of supporting disabilities and inclusion.
Between the course and the interviews, preservice teachers completed a four-week practicum placement at a school where they planned and taught a portion of lessons. During the interviews, I asked the participants about their experiences around implementing inclusive practices during practicum. One hurdle they repeatedly described was taking into account social dynamics when trying inclusive practices. For instance, one participant described an activity where students had to collaborate to solve math problems. The preservice teacher did not realize one student often had negative interactions with peers, making collaboration difficult. In another case, a participant designed a lesson where students worked in groups and did class presentations, but two students had selective mutism and struggled to participate in the activity given its interactive nature.
Having seen first-hand how a teacher’s understanding of inclusion can impact students’ experiences and learning, I knew this was an area that warranted further investigation.
Some participants also encountered school cultures and norms that resisted certain inclusive practices. In a school that prioritized traditional direct instruction and individual seat work, when a participant offered students multiple options to show their learning – such as thorough multimedia or forms other than written text – all students elected to use a written format because it was the normative practice of that learning environment. In another case, a participant explained how in upper grades, there was often a strong focus on preparing students for diploma exams and other teachers in the school questioned learning activities that strayed from the formats used in exams.
Not all participants encountered challenges in their practicum, though. Several described classes where students had agency to use resources as desired to support their needs. The teacher had established norms and inclusive practices that aligned with the preservice teachers’ perspectives toward inclusion. Similarly, one participant noted how their placement classroom had norms around students supporting each other, reducing the onus on the teacher to foster inclusive practices.
At a base level, all the participants conveyed a positive sentiment towards inclusion. All acknowledged diversity among students and their needs, and communicated ways to support those needs. Reflecting on the findings, some key takeaways emerged.
First, traditional, medically-oriented approaches to disability continue to be top of mind for many preservice teachers entering the profession. Given that the medical model underpins much of the systemic processes and supports, teachers must learn to navigate and leverage these systems so students can access funding and resources. At the same time, students are more than a diagnostic label and inclusion should approach students as holistic beings with an array of attributes, strengths, and needs. Contemporary models such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) aim for such a holistic approach, and many teacher education programs (including the one in this study) and ministries of education promote their use. Acknowledging that current funding models and systemic structures can impose pragmatic challenges, training teachers on models such as UDL is key in encouraging teachers to move beyond mere accommodations and take comprehensive approaches to supporting students’ needs.
Second, the participants’ common portrayals of students collaborating or interacting as part of an inclusive environment aligns with contemporary theories of learning as a social process. The participants were less clear on how collaborative approaches worked together with accommodation strategies, suggesting a need for more explicit training and/or scaffolds as part of teacher education and professional development to help teachers integrate individualized supports within social models of learning.
Third, as some participants experienced in their practicums, there can also be tensions between inclusive practices and school cultures and priorities. Pressures such as diploma exams can constrain the types of teaching practices and learning activities that are offered to students. Importantly, inclusion and diversified practices that better support a range of student needs are a benefit and not a compromise or detriment. Approaches such as UDL can enhance and enrich learning for all students while enabling a greater range of students to learn and participate in education. While it may be challenging at times, new and seasoned teachers alike should remain vigilant and reflective about their practices and resist following traditional ways of teaching for the sake of status quo, instead focusing on pedagogies that are inclusive and enriching to all students. Similarly, teacher educators can integrate opportunities for preservice teachers to critically reflect on their perspectives as part of their training.
This study has shown a wonderful breadth in how preservice teachers are thinking about inclusion. While the implementation details were still emergent for some participants, their ideals hold promise. The study also points to opportunities to scaffold ways for teachers to make linkages across different aspects of inclusion (e.g. individualized versus class-wide supports) during their training and when they take on classrooms of their own. As well, given the array of ways preservice teachers think about inclusion, incorporating opportunities to explicitly discuss those perspectives in their teacher education can support them in developing durable understandings of inclusion.
Inclusion is a broad and complex topic with many interconnected elements, much like the drawings involving forest metaphors, so it is heartening to see the next generation of teachers actively considering its many facets in an effort to foster an accessible, robust, and resilient education system for all students.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, January 2021
Alberta Teachers’ Association (2018). The state of inclusion in Alberta schools. www.deslibris.ca/ID/247446; Statistics Canada (2018). Canadian survey on disability: A demographic, employment and income profile of Canadians with disabilities aged 15 years and over, 2017. www.statcan.gc.ca
Holland, D., Lachicotte Jr., W., Skinner, D. & Cain, D. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Harvard University Press.
I still live with hurtful memories of being a timid and apprehensive gay boy who was bullied mercilessly and suffered immense mental anguish during junior and senior high school. I was subjected to incessant name calling and targeted by packs of boys on school buses and school grounds. Later, as a teacher, I was perpetually in fear of being outed as gay and losing my job. I dealt with unrelenting stressors, like finding pictures of naked men left under wiper blades on my car windshield in the school parking lot. These indelible memories are my impetus for wanting to make life better now for sexual and gender minorities (SGMs or LGBTQ2+ persons) in our schools. In Canada today, there is an established basis for doing this, bolstered by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Vriend v. Alberta in 1998, which granted equality rights to sexual minority Canadians, there have been continuous changes in law, legislation, and educational policy that have abetted recognizing and accommodating SGMs in school culture and curriculum. More recently, Bill C-16, An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, which became law in 2017, provided gender minorities with protection against discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and expression.
With such movement forward, what is it like for SGMs to have SGM-specific policy in place in our schools as social spaces where students learn and teachers work? I took up this question in research1 I conducted in a large urban school district in western Canada that had had a standalone SGM policy, rather than merely an umbrella or general equity policy, in place for five years. Having SGM-specific policy is far from the norm in school districts in our country, so I interviewed key interest groups that included students and teachers to learn about their experiences. Students were asked to discuss everyday stressors and supports as they talked about school culture, climate, curriculum, principals, and teachers. Teachers were asked to discuss the importance of having SGM policy and practice that impact the recognition, accommodation, and well-being of SGMs. Here, I share some of their perspectives.
Students’ perspectives: What teachers do matters
The high-school students I interviewed commonly spoke about the need to educate others about SGMs and our issues and concerns. One student who was president of his high-school GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance or Gender-Sexuality Alliance) spoke pragmatically about this:
“I think having more education would be helpful because when people are uneducated, they don’t like what they don’t understand or what they don’t perceive to be normal. I think having education is a really big aspect. Incorporating LGBTQ+ case studies into courses would be really helpful.”
Another high-school student spoke about her former faith-based school where sexual orientation was still a taboo topic. She related, “It was never spoken about. There were no comments on it, and anything you did to try to bring it up, they’d put you down.” She spoke positively about the SGM-inclusive culture in her current school, stating, “I find it very welcoming. You see same-sex couples in the hallway, and there’s nothing – nobody blinks an eye.” She spoke about the teachers, saying, “One of my friends had a teacher who used their preferred pronouns and names. So that’s one teacher I know who’s very accepting. I’m pretty sure there are multiple other teachers who would as well. On the first day, they read off the attendance list and, of course, that’s your legal name. But if you ask, there are multiple teachers who will use the student’s preferred name and pronouns.” Another high school student also spoke about the naming issue, using an example to indicate how students can be negatively impacted in a public way: “One thing that sucks is for Valentine’s Day, they do the hearts. They write everyone’s name on a heart and put them in the lunchroom downstairs. But because they use the attendance list to do it, it’s birth names and legal names. So that can cause anxiety.” One trans-identified student who uses he/him pronouns provided this particular concern regarding naming and roll call. He recounted, “A big issue that you need to work with is substitute teachers. My legal name and the name that I go by are not the same, so I always need to talk to the substitutes ahead of time. That’s a bit stressful. Sometimes they forget. They always try, but you can’t remember everything.” Regarding his teachers in general, this student pondered, “I wish there was some way for the teachers to understand how significant it is to respect pronouns and labels and titles because I feel like some of them don’t understand some of the consequences. The first few times don’t bother you that much, but the more it happens, the more it bothers you. Most of my teachers don’t seem to understand how much it affects me. It makes me feel crappy.” Like other students I interviewed, this student spoke about the need to educate teachers:
“I feel because teachers are directly interacting with and impacting queer youth, it should be part of training them on a PD day or something, just to take a crash course on understanding. I don’t know if those things do happen or what the situation is with that. I just wish in general that people knew more about us and just the facts and less of the perceptions. I don’t know specifically what would be available to them, though. I do wish there was more information that was commonly known. Overall, I think our teachers are pretty supportive – some more than others – just because they’re more educated on everything. And some really try to learn with you, which is helpful. They want you to tell them stuff that they don’t know. There’s still a lot of improvements that can be made, a lot more information that can be shared. With more knowledge, there’s less misunderstanding, there’s less judgment, and everybody can just live together more peacefully and not be angry at each other or confused.”
Teachers’ perspectives: Knowing school culture, being an advocate
Supportive teachers I interviewed saw schools as social spaces where they engaged in strategic actions to advance SGM inclusion. One high-school teacher provided this perspective on what constituted an SGM-inclusive culture in her school:
“The school is very welcoming and comprehensive in terms of how staff accept students and how students themselves are perceived around the school. There isn’t a lot of discussion that we have to do because the SGM policy dictates behaviour. It’s more about creating a culture: We’ll do it because that’s what people do. This results in fewer students seeking out the GSA on a regular basis because the culture of the school itself is so open and accepting that everywhere is a safe place. The school encounters zero parent resistance to pink shirt day and other GSA events. The administration is very vocally supportive of the students wherever they are in their identity journey. They want to put those students first, ahead of any reservations of parents or complaints from community members. Everyone realizes that comfort is not covered under our provincial human rights legislation, but lack of discrimination and the ability to exist in your identity are covered.”
Of course, creating a genuinely accepting SGM-inclusive school culture takes time. Another high school teacher spoke about his GSA work to help non-heterosexual boys become more comfortable with their sexual identities: “In the GSA, it’s always more girls than guys – substantially. It’s probably 80 percent girls and 20 percent boys, if not lower. I’ve talked to other GSA teachers, and they’ve seen the same thing. Many times, I’ve heard girls say that they felt safe. I haven’t really heard a boy commenting either way. Maybe that’s why fewer boys come to the GSA meeting. There generally is more of a stigma for them, especially in high schools.” Paralleling this perspective on non-heterosexual boys’ discomfort, another high school teacher provided this observation: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any boys holding hands, but I’ve seen lots more girls holding hands – girlfriends. That’s now just as okay as heterosexual couples walking down the hallway.” A junior high school teacher offered a similar perspective, indicating it is not just a high-school issue: “The girls seem to be far more comfortable at the junior high age for sure compared to the boys. Absolutely, I don’t think boys are quite there yet at this stage, which is sad. It’s unfortunate.”
Many teachers spoke to the importance of having a standalone school district policy on sexual orientation and gender identity to fortify the work to create an SGM-inclusive school culture. In this regard, one teacher working in an all-grades setting provided her perspective on living out this policy in word and action:
“It’s about a district level of support that starts with leadership. It’s about letting all staff know that it’s about not having prejudice and discrimination based on a student’s perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s about being appropriate with our responses as a staff if we encounter that, whether it’s in behaviours, comments, or the actions of other students. But it goes so much deeper. It’s in the way you would group students, in washroom use and locker use, in language use in the classroom, and in resources and approaches. So, it’s really helpful in building on safe and caring schools. It gives us something to work toward so we’re all consistent. We have a policy and we have the support of our district to continue to do that.”
In sum, teachers provided an array of reasons why a standalone SGM policy is a good thing. One high-school teacher saw it as assurance enabling SGM inclusion when teachers couldn’t rely on the school principal. He concluded, “Putting a policy on this was a good thing because you’re not always going to have an understanding administrator, a forward-thinking administrator.” A junior high school teacher felt the policy enabled him to start a GSA, which subsequently contributed to more SGM inclusion in his school. He said, “I’ve had students say how much better it is in the school since we started the GSA. I used to hear students say, ‘That’s so gay’ – constantly. I can’t even remember the last time I had to say something to a student about that. It’s just known that that’s not acceptable to do anymore. Those sorts of things to do with language and what’s acceptable in schools – I think a lot of that has to do with the policy.”
A standalone SGM policy that is consistently implemented… is a clear indicator that a school district has the backs of SGM teachers and allied teachers.
Considering whether the standalone policy made a difference for teachers in her district, a teacher working in a K-12 school responded, “I think by our surety that we’ve got our backs covered, that makes us stronger in what we’re trying to achieve.” She also saw the policy as effective in assisting SGM students who require basic accommodation that includes having their physical needs met: “I know last year, one student would go home to go to the bathroom. Of course, they wouldn’t come back. Washroom access is something so simple and so painful at the same time.”
Supporting SGM teachers, creating an SGM-inclusive school
Increasingly today, young SGM teachers choose to be vocal and visible at work, which is enabled when there is policy in place to protect them. However, many SGM teachers in our country still navigate homophobia and transphobia in their schools. Their challenges and concerns are well documented in The Every Teacher Project on LGBTQ Inclusive Education in Canada’s K-12 Schools.2
Importantly, a gay junior high school teacher spoke about the significance of having the policy in terms of SGM teacher welfare:
“I think it’s fantastic. I think it’s awesome. When it got put in place in our school district, it just seemed quite far advanced from where the rest of the province was. Just being able to know you’ve got the backing of the board is huge. Knowing that you can go in and ask these questions and do these things and not be petrified is massive. Not that it ever felt like there was a lot of homophobia in my district. I know people have encountered pockets of it here and there. I know of some horror stories, but I came out in my second year as a teacher. It was never a big deal, but it’s still nice to know that the board has your back.”
Indeed, having a standalone SGM policy that is consistently implemented and periodically reviewed is a clear indicator that a school district has the backs of SGM teachers and allied teachers engaged in SGM-inclusive work. Such specific policy can nurture an SGM-positive school culture and encourage principals to lead the way in being there for SGM students and teachers. In the end, policy is protection and its purposeful implementation is true recognition and accommodation of SGM students and teachers.
In terms of being there for SGM teachers, here are three constructive ways to be accommodative: First, show support. Notably, having strong support from school leaders can create a more open dialogue and space whereby SGM teachers feel safe to deliver and engage in SGM-inclusive education. Second, develop inclusive workplace policies. At the school district level, standalone anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia policies covering SGM staff and students – rather than generic equity policy – should stand alongside workplace harassment policies and be implemented to protect and support SGM staff. Third, create a professional and/or informal network. SGM teachers within the district can form a professional GSA where they meet to share their experiences, learn from one another, and develop trusting and supportive professional relationships.
As well, teachers – including SGM teachers needing mentors – students, principals, and parents can learn from the good work that openly LGBTQ+ educators do. Here is an excerpt from an interview I conducted with an openly gay elementary school principal in the school district who spoke about his work to be a change agent and advocate in his school:
“What do I do at my school? Certainly, we have our safe-contact teachers identified. We also have the safe and caring rainbow stickers. There’s one right as you enter the school, and there’s one on my office door, my assistant principal’s door, and on the classroom doors of the safe contact teachers and other supportive teachers. I’ve had many conversations with my parent council around the work we’re doing in order to have their support for the SOGI [sexual orientation and gender identity] work in our school. Our library collection is also growing as we find more and more stories that depict the LGBTQ+ youth and their families and same-sex families. I also have conversations with my staff about heteronormativity, the gender spectrum, and the language we use with students. So, is it working? I certainly know that my staff is very aware. Also, my sexuality is not hidden from my staff, so my staff know who I am. I also let them know that my partner is male and he’s a grade one teacher. I do it because I want them to know that I believe in the normalization of sexuality and gender in our schools, that it is no big deal. It is just who we are.”
Illustration: Diana Pham
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
1 The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded this research.
2 C. Taylor, T. Peter, C. Campbell, et al., The Every Teacher Project on LGBTQ-inclusive Education in Canada’s K-12 Schools: Final report (Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Teachers’ Society, 2015). http://egale.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Every-Teacher-Project-Final-Report-WEB.pdf
“Teachers should not feel that it’s normal to feel unsafe at school.”
– Special education resource teacher
Violence in schools is usually framed in relation to student-on-student bullying, but schools are also workplaces for (predominantly women) teachers and educational assistants: workers who are entitled to – but do not always experience – a safe and violence-free workplace. Over the last decade, unions representing education workers have mobilized to shed light on the “dirty little secret” of educator-directed violence, and the issue has received a measure of media attention. Surprisingly, however, while there are numerous studies examining peer-on-peer violence among students, the harassment and violence experienced by educators has received limited scholarly attention. Indeed, while research on bullying, harassment, and violence against students number in the thousands, we were able to locate less than ten studies on educator-directed harassment and violence in Canada.
To start to address this gap in the scholarly literature, we surveyed 1,688 Ontario English public elementary school educators (contract and occasional teachers, PSP/ESPs, ECEs/DECEs, and other educational professionals) in December 2018 about their experiences of workplace harassment (e.g. slurs, insults, and put-downs) and violence (i.e. acts, attempts, and threats of physical aggression) in the 2017-2018 school year. The Harassment and Violence against Educators (Ontario) Survey endeavoured to assess the frequency, impact, and response to harassment and violence against educators as well as to determine how experiences of, and the response to, harassment and violence are impacted by intersecting factors such as gender, dis/ability, and racialization.
Our full report, Facing the Facts: The escalating crisis of violence against educators, can be downloaded at www.educatorviolence.net. Below, we have summarized select key findings.
The escalating crisis
“I love teaching… However, the emotional and mental abuse that I have been subjected to on a daily basis, and the physical toll it has been taking on my body is unbelievable… I took a medical leave from work due to the stress and abuse. I learned that [my health issues] are due to a prolonged exposure to these conditions.” – Grade 2 French Immersion teacher
The 2017-2018 Harassment and Violence against Educators (Ontario) Survey provides stark evidence that educator-directed harassment and violence is escalating and quickly becoming a crisis. Indeed, rates of harassment and violence are critically high. In a single year, as many as one in two educators will experience violence and as many as 70% will experience harassment, whether from a student, parent, colleague, or administrator. Moreover, harassment and violence are increasing dramatically. Rates of harassment have at least doubled, and rates of physical violence have increased seven- to ten-fold over the last two decades. At the same time, we see a disturbing normalization of violence against educators by administrators, educators, and students operating in tandem with the widespread minimization and/or denial of its multifaceted impacts by administrators, school boards, and politicians. In addition, findings from the Harassment and Violence against Educators (Ontario) Survey indicate that workplace violence is being underreported, and when reported, is all too often accompanied by blame and reprisal. This suggests that official rates underestimate the true prevalence and speaks to an organizational culture that is ill-equipped to address the issue. In real terms, while school boards have embraced the language of progressive discipline mandated under the provincial Education Act, educators told us that, in practice, there are few consequences for students’ harassing and violent behaviour. Finally, findings from the current study suggest that many educators feel neither adequately supported nor prepared and trained to deal with the student-initiated harassment and violence that they are experiencing.
Rates of harassment have at least doubled and rates of physical violence have increased seven- to ten-fold over the last two decades.
The escalating crisis of educator-directed harassment and violence speaks to the compounding impact of structural, fiscal, and social factors. The past 20 years have seen significant changes in society, including growing income disparity, social inequality, and economic stress, a rise in both moderate and severe mental health difficulties among children,3 and the ubiquity of electronic devices, all of which have increased the needs of students. At the same time, we have seen significant shifts in provincial education policies, including a commitment to mainstreaming (placing students with complex needs in regular classrooms with correspondingly decreased use of segregated classrooms) institutionally structured “corrective and supportive” progressive discipline policies,4 and ministry-mandated “Learning for all”5 approaches based on the recognition that “all students learn best when instruction, resources, and the learning environment are well suited to their particular strengths, interests, needs, and stage of readiness.”6 To be successful, these evidence-based practices require significant investment in infrastructure, materials, professional development, and human resources. Unfortunately, as needs and expectations increase, funding formulas have not been recalibrated. Indeed, in Ontario, the impact of deep funding cuts introduced under the Mike Harris government (1995 to 2002) continues to echo.7 In classrooms across Canada, educators are scrambling to meet ever-expanding expectations – from more Individual Education Plans to increased class size to standardized testing requirements – with decreasing levels of support and resources. The result is entirely predictable – frustrated, struggling children whose needs are not being met are “lashing out.”
Harassment and violence, coupled with inadequate (and potentially declining) resources to meet the needs of students, the normalization of harassment and violence against educators, a fear of reprisal for reporting, low levels of support, increasing levels of incivility, the uncertainty about how to effectively respond to harassment and violence, and an unwillingness on the part of administrators to consequence aggressive behaviour is having detrimental impacts on the classroom learning environment, students, and the health and well-being of educators. Indeed, in light of the high rates of harassment and violence experienced by educators in the performance of their duties, it is reasonable to expect that most educators will suffer a mental injury (e.g. PTSD, burnout) at some point in their careers. Accordingly, in addition to strategies to reduce harassment and violence in schools, it is essential that adequate resources (such as access to mental health professionals) are available to ensure that educators who experience harassment and violence have the opportunity to address any mental or physical injuries they sustain, as well as to learn the skills needed to cope with ongoing exposure to harassment and violence.
Action is needed
Addressing this significant problem will require a commitment to immediate action, including:
The workplace violence educators experience has significant and far-reaching costs. It impacts educators’ health, well-being, careers, ability to do their jobs, and relationships. In real terms, the violence reverberates through their personal and professional lives and in turn though the lives of their families, their colleagues, and the students they teach – creating ever more ripples that impact other families and indeed the broader community and society. The impacts also ripple over time – we can only imagine how the casual normalization of violence against (predominantly women) educators is shaping the perceptions and expectations of a generation of students.
Illustration: Diana Pham
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
1 David R. Lyon and Kevin S. Douglas, Violence Against B.C. Teachers: Report of the Simon Fraser University/British Columbia Teachers’ Federation violence against teachers survey (Burnaby, B.C.: SFU Mental Health, Law and Policy Institute, 1999).
2 The financial costs associated with days of work following an incident of harassment and violence were calculated in the following manner. Assuming a conservative rate of violence or harassment that would require time off work, of say just 10% (which is less than one fifth of the rate reported in this survey), then it can be expected that some 8,000 educators would have taken time off work at the time that the survey was conducted. If 25% of those 8,000 educators took the average number of 6.84 days off work, the average cost of replacing these educators in the classroom would be $1,652.31 each, amounting to over 3 million dollars annually. It is important to keep in mind that this estimates a very low rate of exposure to harassment and violence and estimates only the replacement costs associated with a single incident of harassment (and not violence) in any given year. It is important to keep in mind that educators in this survey reported multiple instances of violence and harassment in a single year.
3 A. Boak, H. A Hamilton, et al., The Mental Health and Well-being of Ontario Students, 1991-2017: Detailed findings from the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey – CAMH Research Document Series No. 47 (Toronto, ON: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 2018).
4 Ontario Ministry of Education, Supporting Bias-Free Progressive Discipline in Schools (2013). www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/SupportResGuide.pdf
5 Ontario Ministry of Education, Learning for All: A guide to effective assessment and instruction for all students, Kindergarten to Grade 12 (2013). www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/LearningforAll2013.pdf
6 Ontario Ministry of Education, Learning for All: 8.
7 H. Mackenzie, Course Correction: A blueprint to fix Ontario’s education funding formula (Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, 2018). www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Ontario%20Office/2018/03/Course%20Correction.pdf
Teachers often describe feeling anxious, exhausted, and unwell, and the sense of “being pulled in too many directions.” What is it about teaching that can feel so depleting, that induces what University of Toronto Distinguished Professor Mari Ruti calls “bad” feelings: those feelings that arise from the sense of not doing enough, not doing it well enough, and not being better at it? Stacey, a young and enthusiastic teacher from our research study,1 described teaching as feeling like, “physically and mentally you have nothing left to give.” While Stacey avowed that she loved her job, she also described being overwhelmed – exhausted by the demands of others and the needs of children, and torn by the expectations of the public, parents, principals and colleagues. Through Stacey and the other teachers we interviewed, we see how teachers are inundated with bad feelings.
Unsurprisingly, teachers, teachers’ organizations, and school districts have been seeking ways to help teachers cope with such bad feelings. Efforts to help teachers cope are often constructed through various discourses of self-help and manifest in the language and practices of wellness, well-being, and mindfulness. However, as educators and as researchers, we are concerned with the ways in which these self-help narratives might actually be unhelpful – a tempting snake oil aimed at “treating” the ailments of the teacher. Dr. Ruti explains that bad feelings often result from society’s increased demands for heightened performance, greater productivity, incessant self-improvement, and constant cheerfulness. Like Ruti, we understand these demands as effects of neoliberalism. In education, neoliberalism often manifests as a business model approach to education where costs and efficiencies override moral concerns and in which teacher success is defined in terms of student performance outcomes. Meanwhile, teachers’ professional development is based on expectations of relentless self-improvement.
Here, we want to critically consider teacher self-help narratives and their potential to magnify and misunderstand the bad feelings that teachers experience. We want to consider these feelings from a different perspective; that is, to consider bad feelings as important and intrinsic to the experience of teaching. We do this not in order to dismiss teachers’ feelings, but in a way that might make these feelings more bearable, allowing teachers to deflect the associated sense of inadequacy. We hope to illustrate how a different understanding of these bad feelings might enable us to appreciate the emotional toll of teaching and the ways in which they reflect living an ethical life in teaching.
Curing the ailing teacher
Through the increased societal demands of performance, productivity and self-improvement, self-help discourses become a method of blaming and responsibilizing the teacher for her protest. In other words, not meeting these expectations of improvement is projected as an individual problem – the fault of the teacher. Attempts to cure the ailing teacher have subsequently spawned endless numbers of products and services. For example, a Google search of the terms teachers and self-help elicits over 1,700,000,000 hits; literally, over a billion websites that offer tips, strategies, books, and lists that make suggestions such as, “choosing to live joyfully.” Indeed, as Stacey explained, “I always thought happiness was a choice and that, oh, ‘you can be positive.’” These expectations of self-improvement and incessant cheerfulness feed a lucrative well-being industry, which according to the Global Wellness Institute is worth over four trillion dollars. Thus, the requirement of constant self-improvement makes teachers the target of often-costly self-help products that include books, herbal remedies, medication, therapy, mindfulness training, and yoga. Dr. Ron Purser, an ordained Zen Dharma Teacher in the Korean Zen Taego order for Buddhism and a Professor of Management, likens these individualistic and hip pursuits of self-help as a form of McMindfulness, a corporatized and marketable product that promises self-fulfillment and self-improvement. Although these products might offer some benefits to individuals, the point here is that the increased expectations and scrutiny of teachers’ performance and productivity, makes teachers like Stacey feel as though they must work harder and longer, self-improve, and avail of costly treatments or programs in the process. Teachers must not only shoulder increasing pressures, they are expected to “stay calm and carry on” without protest!
We understand education as a public good and teaching as an ethical endeavour, wherein teachers seek to cultivate students’ understandings of and relationships with themselves, with others and with the world around them, in an effort to lead good and worthwhile lives. Yet, in education, neoliberalism has incited increased managerialism, fewer resources, more standardized testing, greater focus on individualism, and amplified competition. Stacey described feeling “quite conflicted, when admin are talking about a certain initiative or when they are saying ‘This is what you need to focus on,’ but that’s not necessarily what I feel is important for my kids.” These neoliberal ideologies create what Wendy Brown calls “miserable conditions,” in which the task of teaching is constructed as a technical means of knowledge transfer in the name of higher test scores. This creates a tension between teachers’ everyday obligations to engage ethically with students and the often-inhumane expectations of increasing performance indicators.
From this perspective, the self-help discourses serve to redirect the problems of the changing education system to those of problems of (or within) the teacher. In other words, self-help discourses consider teacher stress as the teacher’s fault, and subsequently directs teachers to choose happiness, to declutter, and to breathe. These simplistic “fixes” to teachers’ bad feelings distract us from considering – and critiquing – the conditions in which teachers are situated. Understood in this way, self-help discourses become the means to the neoliberal ends. Instead of cultivating ethical explorations of the self and one’s relationship with the world, self-help operates as another mechanism to control and manage the teacher. The message is, if Stacey could just fix her bad feelings, she could improve both productivity and performance.
Responsibilization of teachers
As education professor Julie McLeod explains, a teacher’s sense of responsibility – to her students, the profession, and the greater good of society – is different from responsibilization. Responsibilization is the requirement on teachers to take greater responsibility for the management of schooling and of children as a technical and regulatory event rather than as an ethical one. Stacey stated, “I feel responsible all the time” and gave examples of feeling responsible for educational assistants, the decisions of her principal, and “carrying her weight.” Responsibilization increases pressures on the teacher, reinforces regulation (of the teacher and of the student) and increases individualism, and thereby recasts teachers’ work from relationships with students to better management of others – and also better management of herself. Consider Stacey’s comment: “I learned a lot of great strategies to stay well. And I’m still working on that balance of like how do I take care of myself and what can I just say no to, so that I can actually feel well.” We see in Stacey’s response her internalized sense of responsibilization; wherein she feels responsible for finding better strategies in order to “feel well.” This internalized sense of responsibilization places the onus on Stacey to “fix” her bad feelings through self-improvement, individualizing and regulating her feelings and her being. Responsibilization recasts what is difficult about teaching as something that should be – and can be – better managed by the teacher.
Teachers’ bad feelings are not a sign of weakness or deficiency, but are symptoms of their sensitivity to students’ needs.
Moreover, the responsibilization of teaching is premised on gendered stereotypes of the teacher. As scholars Alison Prentice, Marjorie Theobald and Madeline Grumet have helped us to understand, teaching has long been considered women’s work, constructed as emotional labour, and relegated to the domestic, private sphere, like the home. Thus, teachers’ protestations about the conditions of their work are dismissed as “complaints,” fueled by gendered stereotypes of teachers as emotional, irrational, and even hysterical. The “complaining” teacher is ignored in political arenas and the teacher’s complaint is seen a symptom of her being unwell – and perhaps even irresponsible.
The emotional toll of obligation in teaching
As we discussed in the opening, self-help narratives make the teacher feel as though she needs to constantly improve her performance, productivity, and cheerfulness in order to be a “good,” or perhaps an even “better,” teacher. Yet, these discourses target and responsibilize the teacher, ultimately serving neoliberal agendas of improved performance, productivity and consumerism – privileging economic goals over ethical engagements. The alluring promises of such a productive and cheerful teaching life are what professor Lauren Berlant would call a “cruel optimism,” or the promise of something that is ultimately impossible to attain. Moreover, even striving to attain it might not be good for us. The constant pressure to improve one’s performance, productivity and cheerfulness is like a greyhound dog race; the unwitting dog is tricked into chasing the lure – but it is never meant to actually catch it.
In our research, we explored the emotional toll of obligation, considering bad feelings as intrinsic to the experience of teaching – not in order to fix or dismiss these feelings or to construct the teacher as hopeless or woeful, but rather to understand these feelings in a way that might make them more bearable. We are interested in shifting discourses about teachers and their feelings away from the faults and flaws of the teacher, and toward understanding teaching as a profoundly relational endeavour, replete with emotional experiences. Perhaps if teachers understood these feelings from a different perspective, they might fend off self-blame and deflect demands for self-improvement.
In exploring the emotional toll of teachers’ obligations, we are guided by the philosopher John Caputo, who describes obligation as a visceral sensation that compels teachers to act. Obligation is that force that teachers experience when they are compelled to respond to the student who is hungry, crying, lonely, failing, joyful, or angry. Obligation in these moments fixes the teacher to a sense of urgency and responsibility while necessitating judgement. When Stacey discovered that one of her students had been writing about suicide and self-harm in her notebook, Stacey described being “worried about her and trying to figure out my next steps.” In Stacey’s story, the anxiety of obligation was animated by bad feelings: she worried about the uncertainty of her decision (what to do?), wondered if she responded appropriately, feared that she might not meet the demands of others, and agonized about being harshly judged. It is in the midst of such bad feelings that we see the teacher’s ethical response – sensitive to the student, no script to follow, and yet, required to act. What we see in Stacey’s stories, and what is emblematic of the teachers we interviewed, is that teachers’ bad feelings represent the visceral responsiveness that characterizes educational relations: teachers feel their obligation to students, and those feelings can become burdensome. These feelings are, however, distinct from the feelings of frustration associated with the increased managerial demands of neoliberalism and its focus on student achievement and teacher accountability.
Put simply, teachers’ bad feelings are not a sign of weakness or deficiency but are a symptom of their sensitivity to students’ needs. With that in mind, teachers deserve the support of the larger society in shouldering education’s obligation to the young. As a starting point, governments, school districts, families, and communities need to engage in substantive conversations about what matters educationally; to consider collectively: What is education for? What is it we want for our children – and our world? How do we know that what we want is “good”? These are the questions that confront teachers in the everyday moments of classroom life. These are the questions that both guide and overwhelm the teacher. These are the questions that constitute an ethical life in teaching.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
1 This article draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Our research team conducted qualitative interviews in two Canadian provinces with teachers who left, or who had considered leaving the profession due to its emotional toll. More about this research can be found at: Melanie D. Janzen and Anne M. Phelan, “‘Tugging at Our Sleeves: Understanding experiences of obligation in teaching,” Teaching Education (2018): 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2017.1420157
Few among us would disagree that well-being is an important priority in K-12 education. A growing body of research has demonstrated that focusing on well-being in K-12 education supports positive mental health, improves academic performance, and contributes to favourable health and quality of life outcomes for students and staff.1 Not only this, but investments in well-being have benefits for the educational system and broader society. These include reduced staff turnover and illness leave, reduced healthcare costs, increased educational attainment, and increased graduation and employment rates.2
Given the strong evidence, support for the role of well-being in K-12 education is growing. How to lead this work with sustained impact, however, is still an evolving conversation.
Extending our gaze “beyond the binder”
For decades, the most popular way to approach making an impact on K-12 students’ health and well-being has been via manualized programs, or what we’ve come to identify as “the binder” (e.g. checklist or activity-based programs with generic instructional content delivered over a specified time period). Likewise, many staff well-being initiatives have utilized this very same approach. Experienced educators have likely accumulated dozens of these over the years. Some continue to act as useful pedagogical and personal references, but many have since been relegated to gather dust in a storage closet.
Because of their step-by-step approach and specialized content, structured programs have filled an important need among educators and leaders looking to address and attend to well-being in the school setting. Faced with mounting needs and few resources, these programs offered valuable and easy-to-understand material to schools looking for expertise and capacity to address and improve well-being.
However, even if proven effective, such programs meet significant challenges in sustainability, and rarely scale beyond initial pilot sites. The sustained impact of “binder programs” is often challenged by factors such as the high cost of training and implementation, and their inability to adapt to diverse school cultures and contexts.3
Implementation science (the study of how to best implement things) has now demonstrated to us that if we want to have sustained impact, three conditions must all be in place:
While some binders cover #1, fewer cover #2, and #3 is a wholly different question that, we argue, is at the root of the problem. We must ask: If a school district was fully committed to becoming organizationally ready to advance student and staff well-being, would they know where to start? If we truly believe that advancing well-being is part of the role of schools, what are the changes we need to make to the structures, policies, culture, and resource flows in K-12 education to get there?
Increasingly, jurisdictions across Canada, are looking for insights on how to move beyond these binder approaches to more deeply embed a focus on well-being across their school communities. In short, they want to understand how to support school system leaders and educators to bring about lasting change with benefits for whole school communities, including leaders, teachers, staff, students and families. To do this, we need to provide solutions for the problems that leaders and educators are trying to solve, at all levels of the system: from classrooms to ministry board rooms.
Learning from leaders who are prioritizing wellness and shifting culture
As more school jurisdictions move their gaze beyond the binder toward system-level shifts in well-being, we are presented with an opportunity to learn. To understand how to effect change, we need to build upon the experience and expertise of school communities that have integrated well-being as a key priority. Recently, we invited six school authorities – three in Alberta, and three in British Columbia – to participate in case study research on well-being in K-12 education. The overall aim of these case studies was to understand promising practices in school well-being at the school jurisdiction level. We wanted to know how and why these school jurisdictions were able to prioritize well-being and shift school culture – what key factors helped to “move the needle.” By examining systems-level change through the lens of school community members, as well as through local documents and data, we are increasing our understanding of how to embed well-being in education.
While each journey has been unique, if we were to pick out one message we have heard clearly across cases, it is the importance of system leaders’ clear communication of well-being as a district priority, with action to meaningfully prioritize well-being through processes that create shared leadership for sustained impact. Examples include enacting district wellness committees with diverse representation, gathering local evidence to inform action, embedding wellness within district priorities and strategic plans, and supporting wellness-related professional development and learning for staff, students, and families. While individuals emphasized the need for champions across schools, they acknowledged the crucial role that system leaders played in overtly making well-being a priority in their jurisdictions and “setting the tone” for change. As one senior leader shared: “We have a superintendent who very much was compassionate and truly cared about kids and staff, so I think it ultimately does start from the top. That’s critical. If you don’t have that, then it just is a lot harder to pull off.”
When school system leaders communicated and modelled the importance of wellness in education, it provided tacit expectation and approval for staff to prioritize wellness in their work. “Our superintendent is very, very invested in student wellness and teacher wellness; and has really given us the permission to go forward in our district and spend a lot of time on wellness,” said one senior leader. This insight was also highlighted in prior research examining the role of school principals who were working to create healthy school cultures through a comprehensive school health approach.5
While leadership for wellness is critical, shifting whole systems requires coordination and effort among school authorities and their school communities. Our research is surfacing diverse stories of change – stories that are reinforcing the need for student and staff voice in well-being related planning, and the value of leveraging the existing strengths of school communities for sustained impact on well-being. The purpose of these case studies is to highlight key learnings about the prioritization of wellness across school communities, and also to share this knowledge with others striving toward this goal. We hope to share these unique stories and thus inspire other jurisdictions to move beyond the binder and accelerate well-being in K-12 education.
Photo: Courtesy SIRCLE
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
Download the Beyond the Binder report for recommendations and actions for system-level shifts in well-being:
Visit the SIRCLE Research Lab YouTube channel to hear directly from case jurisdictions about what is working for them:
Visit www.katestorey.com for more about this project and related research.
1 E. L. Faught, J. P. Ekwaru, et al., “The Combined Impact of Diet, Physical Activity, Sleep and Screen Time on Academic Achievement: A prospective study of elementary school students in Nova Scotia, Canada,” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 14, No. 1 (2017): 29; C. Fung, S. Kuhle, et al., “From ‘Best Practice’ to ‘Next Practice’: The effectiveness of school-based health promotion in improving healthy eating and physical activity and preventing childhood obesity,” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity 9, No. 1 (2012): 27-35; P. A. Jennings and M. T. Greenberg, “The Prosocial Classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes,” Review of Educational Research 79, No. 1 (2009): 491-525.
2 The McConnell Foundation, Beyond the Binder: Toward more systemic and sustainable approaches to mental health and well-being in K-12 education (2020).
3 D. D. Embry and A. Biglan, “Evidence-Based Kernels: Fundamental units of behavioral influence,” Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 11, No. 3 (2008): 75-113.
4 D. L. Fixsen, S. F. Naoom, et al., Implementation Research: A synthesis of the literature, FMHI Publication #231 (Tampa: University of South Florida, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, The National Implementation Research Network: 2005).
5 E. Roberts, N. McLeod, et al., “Implementing Comprehensive School Health in Alberta, Canada: The principal’s role,” Health Promotion International (2015).
COVID-19 is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Researchers from the University of Winnipeg surveyed over 1,600 teachers across the country to explore which conditions, in terms of resources and job demands, allow teachers to remain resilient when teaching during times of disruption and change such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Note: These findings are part of a survey series on supporting teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey responses were first collected in April/May 2020, when teachers had just begun to teach remotely. The survey was administered a second time in mid-June 2020. It will be administered once more in September 2020, when students (in most provinces) are physically back in school practicing safety protocols related to COVID-19. Stay tuned for updates on this survey series.
In Canada, K-12 education systems have a key role in developing strategies to support the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff. While stand alone programs have provided useful content for educators in addressing mental health and wellbeing, it is increasingly recognized that more systemic and sustainable solutions are required to address these issues over the long-term.
Grounded in discussions that took place at two National Roundtable events, this paper outlines why and how K-12 system leaders and their partners must move beyond one-off interventions, programs, and professional development towards an approach where mental health and wellbeing is integrated in the core mandate of public education.