This webinar is primarily for governments, education professional organizations, school and school district leaders, teachers and education support workers, and anyone interested in understanding current issues for changes to K-12 schooling for the education sector across Canada in the COVID-19 era.
This webinar broadcasted on October 7th, 2020 explores what has been learned so far about leading schools through COVID-19 as we prepare to enter into our second month of school reopening across the country.
Topics explored include:
how our understandings of the work of school leaders is evolving;
the ways in which educators and their professional organizations are navigating ever-changing expectations of schooling during the present time; and
how schools can maintain a focus on the social justice and equity issues that have been laid bare as a result of COVID-19 and its impact on marginalized and racialized communities.
Note: EdCan is a neutral third-party intermediary organization. Live presentations do not constitute an endorsement by the EdCan Network/CEA of information or opinions expressed.
This webinar is primarily for governments, education professional organizations, school and school district leaders, teachers and education support workers, and anyone interested in understanding current issues for changes to K-12 schooling for the education sector across Canada in the COVID-19 era.
This webinar explores what has been learned so far about leading schools through COVID-19 as we prepare to enter into our second month of school reopening across the country.
Topics to be explored include:
how our understandings of the work of school leaders is evolving;
the ways in which educators and their professional organizations are navigating ever-changing expectations of schooling during the present time; and
how schools can maintain a focus on the social justice and equity issues that have been laid bare as a result of COVID-19 and its impact on marginalized and racialized communities.
Note: EdCan is a neutral third-party intermediary organization. Live presentations do not constitute an endorsement by the EdCan Network/CEA of information or opinions expressed.
The stress that teachers experience has many sources. Teachers often report feeling undervalued, underprepared, unsupported, overworked, isolated, and marginalized. A Canadian Teachers’ Federation (2014) survey found that eight in ten teachers feel their stress levels have increased over the previous five years. Reasons cited for elevated stress levels include an inadequate amount of preparation time, limited opportunities for planning and collaboration with colleagues, lack of professional development opportunities, and insufficient support with curriculum implementation. Stress impacts teacher well-being, social emotional competence, and the ability of teachers to provide the emotional and instructional support that is characteristic of safe, caring, learning environments.1
When educators experience burnout, the emotional exhaustion that sets in can negatively impact teacher instruction and elevate student stress levels, leading to further mental health issues in the classroom.2 Teacher burnout can cause students to perceive the classroom as negative, which can lead to increased behavioural problems – and it is problem behaviours that teachers cite as a major source of job dissatisfaction, turnover, and lowered expectations. In Canada, stress and burnout has contributed to the high number (25 to 30 percent) of teachers who leave the field entirely within the first five years of beginning their career.3
A district-wide model for supporting teacher well-being
The OECD (2016) has conceptualized an integrated School as Learning Organization model4 with seven key dimensions, described in Figure 1 below. The Surrey School District (SD 36) has developed and implemented a district-wide shared vision for learning – Learning by Design – that puts into action each of the OECD dimensions.
A key aspect of Learning by Design is our commitment to supporting ongoing professional learning through research, innovation, and collaboration as part of our four Priority Practices:
Below we describe a collection of district-wide initiatives, aligned with our four Priority Practices that promote educator well-being, self-efficacy, and connectedness. These initiatives were underpinned by research into best practices, and designed and implemented by multi-department teams. Within our systems change approach, we have in place formalized research, monitoring, and evaluation activities to ensure program challenges are identified and addressed.
Strategies for supporting teacher well-being
Social Emotional Learning for educators When educators demonstrate social emotional competencies (SEC), it translates into positive impacts on teacher-student relationships, a healthier classroom climate, greater student Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and academic achievement, and implementation of more effective SEL and classroom management strategies. Research finds that teachers high in SEC tend to have lower levels of workplace stress, a greater sense of personal accomplishment and satisfaction in their career, and are often better able to provide emotional and instructional support to students.5
Providing professional development grounded in SEL for educators not only provides them with skills to improve their own mental well-being and emotional resiliency, it also provides them with tools to take those skills and implement them with the learners in their schools.
The Surrey Schools’ SEL for Educators (SEL4E) initiative has been offering a series of workshops that provide educators with tools to increase their SEC by developing:
Educators who took part in this initiative reported that they have the confidence to bounce back from a challenging day due to a better understanding of SEL practices, that the skills they learned will support them in overcoming challenges in their career, and that they can identify, assess, and implement strategies that will support their SEC and resiliency.
A district of our size faces barriers to offering SEL professional development opportunities on a wide scale. While it’s great that we have many requests from school staff to take part in SEL4E, the number of requests often exceed what our resources will allow. The district is committed to increase capacity and provide for more collaborative and experiential learning opportunities.
Supporting an SEL climate in schools Educational research finds that system-wide approaches can contribute to improved social emotional competencies for student populations and school staff.6 The Surrey SEL Initiative is a school-wide systems approach to integrating academic, social, and emotional learning (SEL) across the district as a means to promote equitable outcomes for all students, while also promoting teacher wellness and resiliency.
To fuse SEL practices at the level of a school community, our approach incorporates capacity building, collaboration, and reflection on the pedagogical practices teachers adopt and implement in their classrooms. It uses resources from the CASEL Guide to School-wide Social and Emotional Learning to support our schools in assessing the SEL climate of the student population and staff, and to guide planning and monitoring of implemented SEL programs and activities.
Teachers and administrators form a school-based SEL Team and participate in a collaborative process, supported by the District SEL Team. Each school receives release time for one teacher (SEL Lead) one day per week to support the implementation of quality SEL practices. The SEL Lead works side-by-side with classroom teachers in their school to co-plan and co-facilitate the implementation of SEL-based curriculum to enhance learners’ skills development.
This model builds on relationships that exist within a staff. While changes in staff are always the concern, we have found that the nature of this work is taking root and proving sustainable beyond one individual. Evaluation efforts are currently underway to better understand the impacts of the Surrey SEL initiative and the sort of district supports that are needed at all levels of the school system.
Comprehensive mentoring support Mentor 36 is a joint initiative between Surrey Schools (SD 36) and the Surrey Teachers’ Association. It aims to foster a sustained culture of collaborative mentorship at every site in Surrey, supporting professional growth and a sense of belonging for Surrey teachers, through strength-based, non-evaluative learning opportunities such as:
Currently, Mentor 36 has 91 elementary mentors and 126 elementary mentees, as well as 136 secondary mentors and 110 secondary mentees. Feedback data revealed that the majority of mentees (59 percent) were comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities and discussing instructional strategies with their own mentors. About two-thirds of mentors (67%) felt they had developed a safe and trusting mentoring relationship, as evidenced by their mentees reaching out and connecting, feeling comfortable and safe to ask for support, and discussing classroom issues.
At a Mentor Learning Session, mentors created a collaborative drawing depicting the benefits of teacher mentorship.
Collaboration time and efficacy building as strategies to address stress
A review of best practices by the Centre for the Use of Research Evidence in Education7 finds that collaboration that enables co-learning, co-development, and joint work for educators is linked to improved professional knowledge, skills and practices, and increased expectations for student learning. Increased collaboration and communication between teachers often both reduces feelings of isolation and improves teachers’ knowledge and skills. These in turn lead to lower teacher burnout and greater feelings of capability to meet challenges in the classroom.8
Two of Surrey’s programs to support students also support teacher wellness by providing opportunities to collaborate and share learning to better meet the needs of specific students:
The Inner-City Early Learning initiative provides early literacy and numeracy support for “at-promise” students in Kindergarten and Grade One who may be demonstrating challenges in literacy and/or numeracy development since the 2012-2013 academic year. Specialist teachers in literacy and numeracy work collaboratively with classroom teachers in 26 inner-city schools.
Grade One students collaborate to build (with onset-rime trains) and record words with the support of their Early Literacy Teacher.
These early literacy and numeracy supports have provided a success story for our inner-city schools. One challenge is that only three of the original 25 early literacy and early numeracy teachers from the 2012-2013 start-up are still with the program. This rate of turnover impacts the professional capacity building of the department as a whole, and it is more difficult to maintain connections and trust when relationships between early learning support staff and classroom teachers have to begin anew each school year. Despite these challenges, this initiative continues to successfully support some of the district’s most vulnerable learners.
The Knowing Our Learners Initiative offers School Teams (teachers and administrators) the opportunity to participate in Knowing Our Learners (KOL), a collaborative initiative that aims at enhancing instructional and assessment practices with the support of Curriculum and Instructional Helping Teachers. This year, 175 teachers in 55 schools participated in this program, which focuses on knowing our learners’ stories, strengths and challenges, and using this knowledge to design effective learning environments that keep social and emotional well-being, quality assessment, and evidence of learning at the heart of every child’s learning experience.
KOL activities led to teachers feeling supported and more aware of ways to align their learning intentions with student needs and to make informed decisions about teaching strategies and interventions based on research and other supports. Beyond the impacts KOL sessions had on teacher practices, the initiative was grounded in teacher-to-teacher relationships, open dialogue, and peer reflections. KOL was effective because it was “situated in relationships.” As one participant commented, KOL sessions “made me feel working with [my colleague] made me more [sensitive to] what is working and what’s not. I felt it improved our capacity to know how each other worked to help students.”
Knowing our Learners Honeycomb Activity: Teachers wrote and made connections of strengths and stretches of their own Core Competencies with those of their students.
Sustainability challenges and the road ahead
While many Surrey schools have embraced the initiatives previously discussed, maintaining motivation and engagement year over year can be challenging. Additionally, while we have found school-wide buy-in for many sites, in some instances only pockets of teachers have been engaged in these collaborative opportunities. We are working toward overcoming these challenges by ensuring rigorous research and evidence collection activities are embedded throughout each initiative, in order to make adjustments for future planning of district-led initiatives. Our process and outcomes-based program evaluations are formative in nature, grounded in best practices in evaluation designs, and include the stories and reflections of school staff.
The district also ensures that participation in its professional learning opportunities is predicated on school staff either forming or being part of a team at their school site (e.g. SEL School-based Teams). This can still pose a challenge when team members bring to the initiative different goals and competencies on which they wish to focus. We address these differences by connecting Helping Teachers and teacher mentors with specific school sites to help facilitate team discussions and bring clarity around the team’s goals and activities.
With a district focus on social and emotional learning, we are addressing not only the health and well-being of students, but of our teachers as well. We believe that healthy and capable teachers foster healthy school classrooms and give students the best possible chances for success. Surrey School’s Learning by Design framework reflects our systems approach to cultivating well-being. By building teachers’ SEL competencies, we are able to address teacher burnout and stress, support teacher wellness, elevate teacher autonomy and voice, and build resiliency through cross-departmental collaborations.
The primary authors wish to recognize contributions from: Gloria Sarmento (Director of Instruction, Building Professional Capacity Department), Taunya Shaw (District Helping Teacher, Social and Emotional Learning), Courtney Jones (District Helping Teacher, Inner City Early Learning Support), and Sharon Lau (District Helping Teacher, Mentoring)
Illustration: iStock
Photos: Courtesy authors
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
1 M. T. Greenberg, J. L. Brown, and R. M. Abenavoli, Teacher Stress and Health: Effects on teachers, students, and schools, (Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and Pennsylvania State University, 2016).
2 Schonert-Reichl, “Social and Emotional Learning and teachers,” The Future of Children, 27, 137-155.
3 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 (2009): 491-525.
4 OECD, What Makes A School a Learning Organisation? A guide for policy makers, school leaders and teachers, (Paris: OECD, 2016).
5 K. A. R. Richards, C. Levesque-Bristol, T. J. Templin, and K. C. Graber, “The Impact of Resilience on Role Stressors and Burnout in Elementary and Secondary Teachers,” Social Psychology of Education 19 (2016): 511-536.
6 G. G. Bear, S. A. Whitcomb, M. J. Elias, and J. C. Blank, J. C. (2015). “SEL and Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports,” in Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning: Research and practice (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2015).
7 CUREE, Understanding What Enables High-Quality Education: A report on the research evidence (London: Pearson Education, 2016).
8 Richards et al., “The Impact of Resilience on Role Stressors and Burnout in Elementary and Secondary Teachers.”
TEACHERS ARE ASKED to play many roles. They must be creators of engaging lessons, leaders who can motivate students to learn, operation managers, administrators who report and document increasing levels of paperwork, and compassionate counsellors caring for an increasing array of students’ needs. Teaching is also a unique profession as you are “on” all the time. You cannot hide behind a computer screen when you are having a bad day. No wonder a teacher is considered stress-hardy if she remains in the teaching profession for merely five years! Teacher well-being has to be viewed as the essential ingredient to the overall well-being and learning success of students.
Over the period of 2014-2019, I consulted on self-regulation initiatives in two similar northern educational jurisdictions, and observed the resulting relational wellness between student and teacher. I promoted “self-regulation” as an alternative to the traditional cognitive or motivational view of student behaviour. Helping teachers shift the lens through which they view their most vulnerable students can foster both student and teacher wellness.
Both jurisdictional staffs were already acquainted with the concept of self-regulation as introduced by Stuart Shanker and Chris Robinson;1 my task was to translate an abstract understanding into accessible and tangible classroom tools, behaviours, language and wellness actions. The interventions I provided combined social-emotional components promoting self-awareness, social relationships, restoration practices, and self-regulation of optimal energy levels of functioning.
What is self-regulation?
Stuart Shanker2 describes self-regulation as a physiological or energy state that is constantly responding to stressors, both internal (sleep, nutritional, sensory) and external (cognitive tasks, emotional upheavals, social discomforts). It is not self-control, which is a cognitive skill to control an impulse. Rather, it is learning to maintain an optimal level of energy functioning. When stressed, we are affected by an increase in chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol, and we try to reset ourselves back to a state of equilibrium. We may choose healthy self-soothing options such as exercise and talking with others, or resort to unhealthy choices such as addictions, anger towards others or deep withdrawal. Self-regulation fosters your ability to take pause and recover when feeling stressed.
If teachers want students to act differently, then they must model, co-regulate and guide students towards alternative ways of behaving. To do this, self-regulation must occur within teachers first. This is the premise and philosophy I sought to instill in the teachers with whom I worked.
Two approaches to a wellness program
It should be noted that we began our self-regulation journey in Jurisdiction A, experimenting with what self-regulation in a school setting could look like, and took the lessons learned into Jurisdiction B. Both the infrastructure and delivery of the self-regulation projects were radically different in these two jurisdictions, with one jurisdiction choosing a more comprehensive approach in terms of both depth and breadth. Some key differences are described below:
Leadership and participants
In Jurisdiction A, a single senior executive at the Department of Education who had a personal interest in self-regulation championed the initiative. The file was assigned to me, with other departmental consultants informally involved, responsible to lead three enthusiastic pilot schools. External consultants were also hired to provide an advisory role.
In contrast, in Jurisdiction B self-regulation became a strategic initiative collaboratively discussed among the entire senior leadership team. Every regional area in Jurisdiction B selected its own pilot school, with expansion to include additional requests by individual schools, making a total of approximately 15 schools. A committee of department consultants that I mentored was formed, and the union was invited to informally partner on the initiative with the entire jurisdiction, making self-regulation and wellness a priority for all its members.
Finances and target audience
Funding in Jurisdiction A was modest and drawn from the senior leader’s budget. Funding was unknown year to year, and required schools to supplement from their own budgets. Each pilot school selected one vulnerable or dysregulated student as the focal point for programming support. The program targeted the class or student, and did not incorporate teacher wellness.
In Jurisdiction B, the self-regulation initiative was assigned a more substantial and sustained five-year budget as a pillar of their overall strategic plan. The target audience included the entire teaching staff and student population of each pilot school.
Communication and program delivery
Communication in Jurisdiction A was top-down and limited to those directly involved. To start the program, the external consultant provided webinar training to the pilot schools focused on the neuroscience and physiology of self-regulation. I provided classroom consultations to each of the pilot schools, as well as consulting on strategies to support the one dysregulated student. The pilot schools also received a classroom observation, accompanied by environmental and sensory recommendations (e.g. decluttering, lighting, seating options). I handed out sensory tools and program materials on mindful breathing, self-regulation, emotional literacy and movement. A number of schools, beyond the pilot schools, applied separately for funding for structural equipment such as stationary bikes.
Unfortunately, program delivery was a bit haphazard. Further, the uncertainty of funding left pilot schools questioning the overall direction and frankly losing enthusiasm. It was dependent on individual teacher interest if self-regulation became a supported practice in a classroom or school.
Jurisdiction B adopted a comprehensive 4-step program communication and delivery approach:
1) Details of the initiative were widely dispersed. From senior leadership to front-line educators in pilot schools, all were exposed to both theoretical concepts and implementation practices for self-regulation, for both students and teachers. All schools, not just the pilot schools, had access to teacher mindfulness webinars and an online self-regulation book club.
2) We started with a kickoff presentation for program specialists, classroom teachers, and administrators in all pilot schools. Subsequently, a group of consultants joined me for a dedicated week in each pilot school, offering both leadership and classroom support.
3) We took teacher wellness as the starting point. This delivery sequence is espoused by social-emotional author Linda Lantieri,3 who after the 9-11 tragedy insisted that work be with teachers – not students – acknowledging that it’s the teachers who must model for the students. Each school visit began with professional development dedicated to teacher personal wellness, including personalized and doable self-calming and up-regulatory tools.
Some examples of teacher-specific training goals include:
Subsequent training focused on individual supports for dysregulated students, as well as classroom-wide observations on the physical environment and student-teacher interactions. Teachers had the opportunity to leave the class for immediate follow-up coaching with the consultant. There were classroom demonstrations where I modelled lessons such as:
Parent evenings at each school used experiential activities to explain self-regulation.
4) At the end of each school visit tour, the team consulted on lessons learned and we followed up with schools on action items. There were pre-and post-surveys.
Lessons learned
Feedback I received during the school visits, sustainable or long-term behaviour and language changes I observed over a five-year period, and the collected surveys, all informed the following learnings.
Size matters. By sheer numbers, there were more Jurisdiction B schools exposed to the self-regulation initiative (15 schools versus three in Jurisdiction A), and thus there was overall more uptake and success in terms of student and teacher understanding and application of self-regulation. The entire school region was aware and supportive of the initiative, from senior level to front-line staff. At the same time, having more dedicated funds allowed Jurisdiction B to have some quick wins, with schools visibly seeing environmental changes such as lighting, alternative seating, and program resources.
Level of intervention matters. In Jurisdiction A, the level of intervention were brief school visits targeting one dysregulated student. In Jurisdiction B, one week of dedicated time, with substitutes provided, were allocated for us to model practical classroom interventions and debrief with staff.
School culture matters. In Jurisdiction A, the initiative was relatively short-lived. The schools in Jurisdiction B that found observable, sustainable, success with this initiative could envision the potential benefits of self-regulation because the concept aligned with their whole-school orientation toward students. In these schools, leadership held power with staff and the staff was a cohesive community. Self-regulation became another part of their culture, with teachers explicitly expressing their own energy levels and need for daily breathing and movement breaks. Schools that adopted self-regulation already recognized the critical prerequisite of positive relationships with teachers for students to achieve, and school staff and leaders accepted a longer-term perspective on behavioural and academic changes.
Teacher wellness is a necessary component of self-regulation. Schools in Jurisdiction B that integrated self-regulation into school practices also prioritized teacher wellness, beyond yoga workshops or other one-day add–ons. Teacher wellness was understood as necessary to student success and supported with concrete stress reducers such as decreased photocopying, time between classes to just breathe, and streamlined reporting systems.
Reduced stress was most notable in Jurisdiction B, where there were directed self-regulatory supports for both students and teachers. The self-regulation lens invites more compassion for dysregulated students, and teachers reported this reduced their own stress levels. Also, when teachers were self-regulated themselves, they were able to co-regulate the students. A teacher noted, “The self-regulation work was one of the most influential pieces of professional development that I have been a part of in my career. First, and most importantly, it had a profound impact on my professional and personal well-being.” When self-regulation resonated with the teachers’ own sense of well-being it was more likely to be integrated into the classroom for students as well.
Some gains with both approaches. An overall win in both jurisdictions was that there is now more acceptance of the belief that children are doing the best they can and that relationships with students are critical to success. Sensory circuits, the use of movement, and stationary bikes have become standard school tools. Unfortunately, where stationary bikes were placed in classrooms without explicit rationale, they sometimes became glorified coat hooks.
Not a quick fix. Neither of the jurisdictions found the widespread transformational change in student self-regulation and overall achievement levels that they hoped for. While improvements were seen in this student population, a self-regulation initiative alone cannot quickly shift the outcomes for dysregulated children, as school is only one part of their overall life experience. I believe self-regulation is a viable initiative to lead to such success, but it requires a long-term and multidimensional approach.
Leadership is key. The vast differences in the two jurisdictions’ approaches certainly impacted the reach and level of success. However, I believe the most profound ingredient necessary for the widespread success of any educational initiative is the priorities of all leadership and whether they themselves integrate and model the change they wish to see.4 Sustainability of an initiative comes from leadership enthusiasm.
SELF-REGULATION is not easy to adopt into practice. A significant philosophical change is required in how teachers and administrators view students’ behaviour. It requires enhancing our own self-awareness and it requires the belief that student-teacher relational health is a prerequisite to engaged learning and student academic success. Teachers need to work in a safe, supporting culture to begin self-examination of their practice. Moreover, it takes time to see changes. Given that schools work on a yearly basis with limited timed academic objectives, it is not always feasible to look beyond the academic demands nor at long-term initiatives.
The larger net cast and more comprehensive supports provided in Jurisdiction B led to more in-depth exposure to the concept, and thus greater probability of reaching the right, enthusiastic leaders and teachers who deeply integrated self-regulation into their personal lives. Seeing positive changes within themselves, they were positioned to model and translate it at the school level. As one school administrator reported, “We are able to use language that helps to diffuse rather than exacerbate difficult situations, and we have a better appreciation of our own need to self-regulate.” Teacher wellness must be an integral component of any self-regulation initiative for students.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
1 http://www.selfregclinic.com/
2 Stuart Shanker, Calm, Alert and Learning: Classroom strategies for self-regulation (Toronto, On: Pearson Canada, 2015).
3 https://casel.org/consultants/linda-lantieri
4 S. Sinek, Leaders Eat Last: Why some teams pull together and others do not (New York: Penguin Random House, 2014).
This webinar is primarily for school district leaders, school principals and vice-principals.
It is now more apparent than ever before that taking care of the health of our K-12 educators can no longer be a reactive response. Leaders must begin to be proactive, putting accessible initiatives in place that prioritize the health of their teams. If we hope to impact our student’s success, we must be our best self – mentally, physically, and emotionally. Leadership at all levels must set an example for all to follow.
This webinar originally broadcasted on September 21, 2020 was all about bringing a proactive approach to the culture of educator wellness.
This webinar is primarily for school-based educators
As an educator, do you feel like you’re on a boat out at sea with no rudder this September? Cultivating mindfulness and self-compassion practices can provide the anchor you need in these unprecedented times.
Bill O’Brien said: “The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.” In other words: the success of our actions as educators during September does not depend on “What we do” or “How we do it,” but on the inner Place from which we operate. Mindfulness and self-compassion enables us to show up intentionally aware and present so we can meet each colleague and student with care. But it starts with us as individuals first.
In this-one hour webinar, originally broadcasted on September 18th, 2020, participants learned the three components of self-compassion, the physiology around self-compassion and self-criticism and practices on how to meet ongoing struggles in the moment.
Watch the webinar below:
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
Students have been subject to some of the most egregious and gross forms of racism that no one should ever experience, much less a child. In Ontario, two fairly recent examples of racist violence that students face have been documented in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board and the Peel District School Board. On June 15, 2020, the CBC reported that Anne Stewart,1 a teacher at Notre Dame Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario, used the N-word in class while teaching students. Stewart was reported to the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), which concluded that the teacher had indeed used the N-word. However, Stewart only received a verbal reprimand and her case was not sent to the OCT’s discipline committee. The second case worth mentioning happened in 2016, when staff at an elementary school in the Peel District School Board called in the Peel Regional Police to address a situation where a six-year-old Black female student was in mental distress. The two white officers who arrived proceeded to shackle the hands and feet2 of the little girl. She remained shackled and placed on her stomach for 28 minutes. The case was referred to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and, in 2020, the Tribunal ruled that the girl’s human rights were violated and that race was a factor in the way the police responded.
What we must understand is that both of these cases were traumatizing events for the students involved; they will likely require mental health support for a long time as a result of the racial trauma they experienced. The same can probably be said about the many students who have also come to be aware of too many of these stories in which Black and racialized students, friends and family, experience racist violence in the school system. Students and their families are also re-traumatized when they find out that those who committed these racist acts are rarely held accountable for their actions.
Since school districts are in the business of serving students, we can understand why we need to address these issues so that students can have the opportunity to be successful and not be under the threat of racial violence when they are expected to be learning and getting an education. But there’s another part to this conversation that often does not get the attention it deserves: the racism that Black, Indigenous and racialized staff experience in school districts across the country. The system of anti-Black racism that Black students are fighting against and resisting is the same anti-Black racism that Black staff have to contend with and navigate while they are expected to be teaching at a high level. A report titled The Voices of Ontario Black Educators, covered by the Toronto Star in 2015,3 stated that one-third of the Black teachers, principals and vice-principals who participated in the study indicated they were passed over for promotions because they were Black, 27 percent indicated that racism at work impacts their day-to-day work life, and 51 percent believed anti-Black racism impacts who gets promoted.
School districts that want to take up the work of dismantling systemic racism to enhance student success and address the disparity in student outcomes must also address and dismantle the racism that Black and racialized educators are experiencing in the K-12 workplace. This can only be done by taking a comprehensive approach to staff mental health and well-being, and by drawing the connection between systemic racism, racism and anti-Black racism in the workplace and well-being in the workplace. The premise of this discussion must be that our education system, and by extension our school districts, are all inherently racist and anti-Black. The conversation should not be about, “Is racism operating in our school district?” The evidence and research detailing a variety of ways that racism and anti-Black racism impacts the education system is too strong and comprehensive for us to still be looking for more proof to establish its existence. The conversation must be about, “How we can gain a better understanding of how racism is operating in our sector or school district so that we can address the disparities that Black and racialized staff are experiencing?”
It is important to note that although all racialized groups experience racism, not all racialized groups experience racism in the same way. When we examine outcome data, what we clearly see is that anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism, across all sectors, produce the most significant negative outcomes among non-white populations. Disaggregated race-based outcome data is what should drive where and how school districts focus their attention and resources when doing anti-racism work. Anti-Black racism and systemic racism is a deeply entrenched problem in the education sector across the country, which has roots in the legacy of enslaved people in Canada.4 This is a very important point, because it is through a comprehensive understanding of colonialism and Canada’s participation and relationship with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, that you will understand how all of our major institutions, laws, social norms and such have been built on this foundation and reflected in present-day realities. However, as serious as the problem is, it is not readily understood in terms of its impact on stress, anxiety, trauma and overall well-being in the workplace. If school districts are serious about addressing anti-Black racism and systemic racism, then they must see it as one of the most pressing mental health challenges of our time that requires concentrated effort, attention and resources if our schools, classrooms and workplaces are to be safe and nurturing work and learning environments.
Research indicates that teacher stress is directly linked to student performance and effective class management strategies. Teachers who are under chronic stress have been shown to have less effective classroom management,5 lack clear teaching instruction for students and have a lower ability to create safe and nurturing classrooms for all of their students. Research also shows that teachers who view and experience the demands and stress of teaching as outweighing the resources and support provided to them, are less likely than their peers with lower levels of stress to say they would still choose teaching if they had the chance to choose their career again.
Now, imagine you layer the stress and anxiety that comes with managing a classroom with the stress, anxiety and trauma caused by anti-Black racism and systemic racism that Black and racialized educators experience in the workplace. Racial violence can lead to racial trauma. Dr. Erangler Turner defines racial trauma as “experiencing symptoms such as anxiety, hyper-vigilance to threat or lack of hopefulness for your future as a result of exposure to racism or discrimination.” The impact of racial trauma shows up not only as anxiety and stress but also as depression, low self-esteem, poor concentration and irritability.6 Research on racial trauma also indicates that as a result of anti-Black racism, Black people experience less sense of control over their own lives, as well as internalized racism and avoidance of valued action. Chronic stress related to anti-Black racism predisposes Black people to a variety of health problems, including memory impairment, neural atrophy and heart disease. Some research has also pointed out that anxiety can be more persistent among Black people compared to their non-Black counterparts, which researchers attribute to the intensity of anti-Black racism. The impact of anti-Black racism and racism in the workplace also has negative physical impacts on Black and racialized staff. Most notable is that chronic and prolonged stress related to racism can lead the body to release high levels of cortisol, which can impair the body’s ability to reduce inflammation. This in turn can impair the body’s ability to heal. This is what Black, Indigenous and racialized educators are having to contend with in the workplace, and much of these negative mental health and well-being outcomes are directly connected to school districts’ refusal to see racism as a mental health and well-being issue, along with their inability to effectively address racism for both staff and students.
Anti-racism is integral to staff well-being
Most school districts have some form of well-being plan. This might include a paid staff role that is responsible for coordinating and rolling out mental health and well-being programs and initiatives. There may also be a well-being committee made up of staff who help to direct the school district’s well-being initiatives.
Although many staff well-being initiatives have value and help to improve the mental health and well-being of educators, the fact is that the vast majority of these programs take a race-neutral approach. Racism tends to not be factored into program design, and this type of approach only serves to further entrench anti-Black racism and other forms of racism in the workplace. By making anti-racism work a central feature of mental health and well-being plans, school districts will be centering the voices of those most vulnerable in the system and keeping the conversation about racism in the workplace at the forefront. These are both seen as best practices when doing anti-racism work.
It is well established that better mental health leads to positive outcomes for organizations. When educators experience high levels of well-being and low levels of stress, this not only results in higher student well-being and educational outcomes, but it also improves:
School districts may roll out a variety of services and training opportunities, such as benefits programs that provide health supports like mental health counselling, massage or physiotherapy, or workshops that help educators communicate better, create a healthy work-life balance, and so on. From a mental health and well-being perspective, these initiatives are important and have value. They can and do have a positive impact on staff mental health and well-being. However, the problem with looking at workplace well-being solely through this lens is that it puts the onus of well-being on the staff, which fuels the idea that if staff can just learn a new skill or develop better coping mechanisms, then they can achieve optimal mental health and well-being. This approach lets school districts off the hook.
Anti-Black racism is systemic and operates in every aspect of school districts’ operations, policies and programs. This can and does have a detrimental impact on Black and racialized staff. If your plan to disrupt racism in the workplace is to essentially develop programs that aim to help Black and non-white staff deal more effectively with their oppression, then you do not have much of a plan! (See “Anti-Racism Basics” below.) School districts that take this approach are complicit and perpetuate racist violence against Black and non-white staff; the onus of disrupting anti-Black racism in our K-12 workplaces falls on the shoulders of school district leadership. It is also not enough for districts to devise ways to address the racism that students face while neglecting to turn their attention towards how Black and racialized staff are also impacted by racism. All students can see the racial hierarchy of school settings, where Black and racialized educators are scarcely in positions of leadership such as principal and vice-principal. They can see what bodies are in positions of leadership, they can see what bodies are not in leadership roles, and they can see what bodies are less present overall in school spaces. They can see what bodies are valued and what bodies are not.
If school districts are serious about staff well-being in the K-12 workplace and truly desire to have better student outcomes, then they must see anti-racism work as mental health and well-being work. School districts’ anti-racism work must include both staff and students. It is clear that when staff have lower stress and anxiety levels, they perform better as educators, which leads to better student outcomes. But workplace racism inflicts an additional level of stress, anxiety and racial trauma on Black, Indigenous and racialized staff. We know that racism and anti-Black racism has significant mental, emotional and physiological impacts on Black and other non-white educators in the workplace. This additional “tax” can and does lead to teacher performance being negatively impacted, which ultimately will impact student outcomes. Only a systemic approach to doing anti-racism work (that includes the needs of both students and staff, frames anti-racism work as a mental health and workplace well-being issue, and includes accountability) will turn our schools and districts into spaces where learning can happen and where Black and non-white staff can bring their whole selves to work – without having to shoulder the weight of systemic and anti-Black racism.
Illustration: Diana Pham
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
A comprehensive discussion of effective anti-racism programs for school districts would require a whole other article. But as a starting place, they should feature:
1 Shanifa Nasser, “High school teacher who used N-word in class allowed to keep working after apologizing,” CBC News (June 15, 2020). www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/brampton-teacher-notre-dame-n-word-1.5607961
2 “Race was a factor in handcuffing of 6-year-old black girl in Mississauga school, tribunal says,” CBC News (March 3, 2020). www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/human-rights-tribunal-peel-police-girl-handcuffed-1.5483456
3 Louise Brown, “Black teachers still face racism on the job in Ontario,” Toronto Star (May 29, 2015). www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2015/05/29/black-teachers-still-face-racism-on-the-job-in-ontario.html
4 Natasha Henry, Anti-Black Racism in Ontario Schools: A historical perspective (Turner Consulting Group Inc., Research and Policy Brief No. 1, May 2019). www.turnerconsultinggroup.ca/uploads/2/9/5/6/29562979/policy_brief_-_no_1_may_2019.pdf
5 Sarah D. Sparks, “How Teachers’ Stress Affects Students: A research roundup,” Education Week – Teacher (June 7, 2017). www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2017/06/07/how-teachers-stress-affects-students-a-research.html
6 Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez, “The Little-Known Health Effect of Racial Trauma,” The Cut (June 7, 2017). www.thecut.com/2017/06/the-little-understood-mental-health-effects-of-racial-trauma.html
In the Odyssey, Homer writes of the fear that Greek mariners felt as they attempted to cross the narrow channel of water flanked by Scylla, the six-headed monster on one side, and Charybdis, the violent whirlpool, on the other. My circumstances were not as dire, but I can empathize with the pressure these ancient sailors felt. My dilemma between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” occurred during the heated 2014 contractual dispute between the B.C. Ministry of Education and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, during which I walked an ethical tightrope between my responsibilities as teacher to my inner-city school, and as a representative of the Federation.
The educational landscape of British Columbia in 2014 was marked by extreme tension, with heated contract negotiations that escalated into a full-scale strike and lockout. The union ordered members to discontinue participation in extracurricular programs. At the time, I had taken on many extracurricular duties at my school, which was situated within one of the poorest socio-economic pockets of the Lower Mainland. Many of our families found themselves in a constant state of crisis as a result of chronic poverty. Many of our children were in and out of the revolving doors of foster care. Some families were refugees who had fled civil and political strife in their home countries. Opportunities were sparse for the children of this community. This is not to say that the parents did not care for their children – some worked two or even three low-paying jobs to provide as many opportunities as were accessible to them. As a professional, I found it gut-wrenching to balance my response to these competing claims on my loyalty.
On the one hand, I had a legal and professional responsibility to my union. Issues of key importance to me, such as benefits, working conditions, salary, student funding, and the overall integrity of public education had all been secured as a result of the tireless effort of the union. At a critical time when the union was engaged in negotiations, I recognized the importance of teachers presenting a united front. If the union needed us to withdraw extra-curricular activities and strike to pressure the government, I felt compelled to support their decisions. It was also clear to me that to maintain productive relationships with my colleagues, I needed to show the same level of commitment to the union as they did.
On the other hand, I also felt a strong sense of obligation to my students and the community. I was acutely aware that many of the children at my school were already marginalized. I thought their extracurricular opportunities helped to address the lack in their lives and provided these children, who were at constant risk of becoming statistics themselves, with rare opportunities to engage in enriching and constructive activities. My conscience told me that I needed to exercise compassion for those less fortunate. The care of one’s fellow humans is a responsibility that I feel we are born with and should not abdicate, and this lay at the heart of my dilemma.
I wrestled with finding a balance between the opposing claims. I believed in both! Was it possible to serve two masters when they were locked in conflict? This situation led me to a paralytic state of inaction. I was unable to make a move in either direction. The more I tried to find a way forward, the more paralyzed I became. Was it even possible to reconcile this ethical duality when the solutions were so mutually exclusive? How could I choose one side over the other, and how could I look at myself in the mirror after doing so? To choose one side would betray the other side and my ethical principles as well. These were unanswerable questions that preyed on my mind and put me in conflict with myself.
But ultimately my story had a happier ending. Like the mariners who found the narrow channel between Scylla and Charybdis, I finally found a middle path through my dilemma. I was able to connect our underprivileged students with a non-profit agency that would provide extracurricular activities during the strike, which allowed me to withdraw my own extracurricular services in better conscience.
Looking back, this dilemma did more good than harm for my practice, because it enabled me to clarify why I choose to teach and how I choose to do so.
Illustration: iStock
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
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).
A rural school division in Northwest Saskatchewan is not immune to the rising trend of burnout and mental health issues in educators. In response to this growing concern, Northwest School Division (NWSD) administration created a team to support and promote staff wellness that included teachers and school support staff, as well as a division councillor and members of the senior administration. Understanding that wellness can mean different things to different people, the team took a holistic approach in encouraging staff members to be well. While we recognized that many of the systemic issues that lead to burnout would not be solved through individual efforts, there was an opportunity to support the personal wellness of staff and build a sense of community around well-being.
The Live Well campaign was launched in December 2018, with a mission of “promoting and supporting physical, mental and spiritual wellness for all members of #teamNWSD.”
First steps
A symbol: To kickstart the program, each staff member was given a blue NWSD Live Well bracelet: a symbolic reminder of both their goals and the support within the division to accomplish those goals. Our belief structure established that “to Live Well can mean something different to each person, as we are all on different wellness journeys.” The bracelet highlighted the fact that, in a variety of ways, individuals are making wellness a priority in their lives.
Live Well Journal: In addition to the bracelets, each staff member was provided with a Live Well journal to chart their progress, collect their thoughts and highlight their successes. The journal served as a concrete tool to share information about the challenges and help staff to plan their personal journeys. The outline of the year for the Live Well campaign was colourfully articulated and information about each monthly theme was presented. Having a vibrant journal that employees could have in their hands and easily take with them underscored the idea that wellness is something that you can personally interact with on a daily basis. Our Live Well team knew we were on the right track with this concept when we could spot the dog-eared journals on staff desks in buildings all across our division.
My Wellness Goals: The first Live Well activity was titled “My Wellness Goals.” Each employee was encouraged create three personal wellness goals for the year. The goals did not need to be shared publicly and staff could consider physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions. Participants, with the aim of further committing to Live Well, had the opportunity to share with the team that they did create three personal wellness goals. The goals served as the foundation of a personal journey throughout the year.
The challenges
As the year unfolded, staff members had the opportunity to be involved in a number of challenges that coincided with monthly themes. Each month of the school year had a designated theme and challenge, and a fitting prize as an extra incentive for individuals and staffs to join in the fun. The month of September, for example, started with the theme of “Get Moving” and included a step challenge as well as a virtual run. There was a buzz in the air as people set their own goal and guessed at what the winning step total might be. Mini staff competitions cropped up, and groups started coordinating their lunch hours around getting in their daily steps. We started to see staff connections and camaraderie building around the Live Well program.
December’s theme was “Stress Management,” and in addition to encouraging employees to reflect on how they planned to manage stress, we held three wellness fairs throughout the division at which employees could enjoy massage, yoga, meditation and healthy snacks. The fairs were a welcome reprieve at a stressful time when there were many school events to wrap up before the holiday break. They also served as an opportunity to both support and thank staff members for their commitment to students. In January, the “Active Living” theme was highlighted with the Wellness BINGO. The challenge was done on an individual and staff level, with participants having the opportunity to complete tasks in the squares to fill in their BINGO card. This contest was the ultimate team challenge and created an exciting energy as people encouraged their colleagues to fill in squares and worked to stay ahead of schools and offices down the road.
Our team purposefully tried to keep the barrier to entry low and create challenges that focused on different areas of wellness to engage a variety of different staff members. Staff that may not have connected with the virtual run might have a good book or healthy recipe to recommend, or a hobby they found stress relief in. Each month we have been able to engage different groups of people.
Energy and connection
A critical goal of the Live Well campaign was to bring staff members together. In our rural Saskatchewan context, togetherness is accomplished in creative ways. As such, each challenge included a requirement or encouragement to share individual or team accomplishments on social media. The school division’s Twitter feed was filled throughout the year with examples of people being well. In addition to the entertainment that comes with seeing what colleagues were up to, the presence on social media also reinforced the idea that “If my friends and colleagues can be well, I can too.” Our communities started to take notice and it was clear they saw the value in promoting staff wellness. Many local organizations and businesses reached out and asked how they could support us. A surprise benefit for the leadership team was the stories from staff who felt inspired by the activities we were doing and used that as the impetus for creating their own staff and school challenges. The small seed we planted grew far beyond what we ever could have expected.
Well together
We recognize the diversity and complexity of individual wellness for staff members in the field of education, and the reality that a challenge-based approach to staff wellness is only one of a multitude of factors that contribute to individual wellness. Still, we are encouraged that the Live Well campaign has allowed us to make some difference. Through the Live Well campaign, the school division has had the opportunity to communicate clearly that staff wellness matters. Live Well allows people to try new things that they may not have otherwise chosen to do. Perhaps most of all, the Live Well campaign supports the feeling that if we are going to be truly well, we will do it by being well together.
All Photos: courtesy of the authors
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
Long before the new school year started, teachers, school and district leaders and Ministry staff were trying to plan for a safe and productive return to school. Or perhaps a partial return to school, supplemented with online learning. Or perhaps some other model. From wrestling with the logistics of keeping students physically distanced from each other in buildings designed and staffed for large groups, to seeking kid-friendly online learning approaches, it’s been an uncertain path toward a moving target. Parents and students, of course, also have new worries and challenges.
So everyone in the education system is feeling an additional layer of stress. We are also finding new ways to connect with and support each other, experiencing satisfaction when we find effective ways to meet new challenges and taking pride in the successes that have been achieved so far.
This issue of Education Canada is focused on you and your well-being at work, regardless of your role in the education system. Before we’d even heard of COVID-19, staff stress and burn-out was already a significant problem in education. Staff well-being is an issue that all school boards should be concerned about – and now more than ever.
The authors in this issue offer thoughtful, evidence-based analysis of the stress educators experience and how this impacts the whole school community. Rohan Thompson and André Grace address the burden of stress that BIPOC and LGBTQ2+ staff and students endure due to systemic and explicit racism and homo/transphobia. Darcy Santor and Chris Bruckert report on the worrying increase in violence and harassment teachers are experiencing. Melanie Janzen and Anne Phelan examine how over-emphasizing self-help as the “cure” for teachers’ stress can actually increase anxiety and feelings of inadequacy, while overlooking both the systemic factors that create relentless stress and the inherent nature of the job for teachers who care.
There is plenty of good news, too. Our authors also share initiatives, programs and policies that have strengthened educator well-being in their districts, and new ways of thinking about and addressing stress among teachers and students alike.
I hope you find validation, useful information, and inspiring ideas in this issue to support you and help you stay well – both as we find our way through the pandemic, and in the future.
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
We want to know what you think. Send your comments and article proposals to editor@edcan.ca – or join the conversation by using #EdCan on Twitter and Facebook.
Joanne was a Grade 3 teacher in a high-need rural school. She was an incredibly conscientious person and she worried a lot. She worried about how good a teacher she was, how her colleagues perceived her, and what her principal was thinking, as well as being concerned about each student and how she could help them progress. This worry led to her doubting herself and working even harder, and over time she became emotionally exhausted. This, in turn, affected her family life and her health. Then a new principal arrived and set social and emotional learning as a central goal of their school.
Joanne was mentored in the use of an evidence-based Social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum and the staff created a reading group on SEL. They then began to work on their own social and emotional awareness, which included some short and practical mindfulness practices. The staff also worked to create a more compassionate, caring culture for their school, children, and parents. Joanne found a new reserve of inner strength, loosened the grip of her worry, and celebrated the new sense of partnership with teachers and other staff. She developed closer relationships with her students and parents and she slowly gained back the joy of teaching.
This story illustrates the power of community, leadership, and self-inquiry in supporting a teacher’s own journey as a professional. All three components supported Joanne and nurtured her abilities as a teacher. Over the past few decades, research has shown that teachers who develop and compassionately nurture their own social and emotional competencies are those who create caring classrooms and support their students’ SEL. Further, when children’s social and emotional competence is facilitated and the school nurtures healthy relationships with colleagues, students, and families, students become more engaged as learners and increase their school success.
In the time of COVID-19, there are important lessons for us to remember. First, we need to nurture ourselves and make realistic plans for self-care. Second, we need to nurture our relationships with our colleagues, and especially reach out to our students and families. Third, secure and caring relationships are the base for learning and success and the more secure and confident we all feel, the more learning and growth will happen.
First published in Education Canada, September 2020
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.
Froese-Germain, B. (2014). Work-Life Balance and the Canadian Teaching Profession. Canadian Teachers’ Federation.
Santor, D. A., Bruckert, C. & McBride, K. (2019). Facing the Facts: the escalating crisis of violence against elementary school educators in Ontario. Ottawa ON: University of Ottawa.
Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (2015). Voices of Ontario Black Educators: An Experiential Report.
Grace, A. P., & Wells, K. (2016). Sexual and gender minorities in Canadian education and society (1969-2013): A national handbook for K-12 educators. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Teachers’ Federation.
Ontario Principals’ Council. (2017). Ontario Principals’ Council International Symposium White Paper: Principal Work-life Balance and Well-being Matters. International School Leadership Symposium, Toronto, Canada.
Pollock, K. (with Wang, F. & Hauseman, D. C.). (2014). The changing nature of principals’ work: Final report.
Wang, F. & Pollock, K. (2020). School Principals’ Work and Well-Being in British Columbia: What They Say and Why It Matters.
Alphonso, C. (2020, January 16). Ontario’s teachers, education workers using more sick days now than almost a decade ago: Report. The Globe and Mail.
Naylor, C., & White, M. (2010). The Worklife of BC Teachers in 2009: A BCTF study of working and learning conditions [Research Report]. BC Teachers’ Federation. See also: Deloitte Development LLC. (2019). The ROI in workplace mental health programs: Good for people, good for business—A blueprint for workplace mental health programs (Deloitte Insights, p. 36) [Research and analysis]. Deloitte Development LLC.
Deloitte Development LLC. (2019). The ROI in workplace mental health programs: Good for people, good for business—A blueprint for workplace mental health programs (Deloitte Insights, p. 36) [Research and analysis]. Deloitte Development LLC.
Morrison, B. (2019, November 22). The Student Achievement Case For Workplace Being. The Case for Investing in K-12 Staff Well-being, Toronto, Canada.
Shain, M. (2019). Getting Ahead of the Perfect Legal Storm: Toward a basic legal standard of care for workers’ psychological safety (p. 27). Workplace Strategies for Mental Health.
Oberle, E., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016). Stress contagion in the classroom? The link between classroom teacher burnout and morning cortisol in elementary school students. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 30-37.
Núñez, J. L., Fernández, C., León, J., & Grijalvo, F. (2015). The relationship between teacher’s autonomy support and students’ autonomy and vitality. Teachers and Teaching, 21(2), 191-202. See also: Oberle, E., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016). Stress contagion in the classroom? The link between classroom teacher burnout and morning cortisol in elementary school students. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 30-37.
Jennings, P.A., Brown, J. L., Frank, J. L., Doyle, S., Oh, Y., Davis, R., DeMauro, A. A. & Greenberg, M. T. (2017). Impacts of the CARE for Teachers Program on Teachers’ Social and Emotional Competence and Classroom Interactions. American Psychological Association. See also: Quin, D. (2016). Longitudinal and Contextual Associations Between Teacher–Student Relationships and Student Engagement: A Systematic Review. Review of Educational Research. Vol 87. Issue 2.
Morrison, B. (2019, November 22). The Student Achievement Case For Workplace Being. The Case for Investing in K-12 Staff Well-being, Toronto, Canada.
Photos: Adobe Stock (Illustrator: iracosma)
Our free webinar series is available again to continue to provide Canadian K-12 staff with actionable strategies to improve workplace well-being during this unique back-to-school.