In Canada, K-12 education systems have a key role in developing strategies to support the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff. While stand alone programs have provided useful content for educators in addressing mental health and wellbeing, it is increasingly recognized that more systemic and sustainable solutions are required to address these issues over the long-term.
Grounded in discussions that took place at two National Roundtable events, this paper outlines why and how K-12 system leaders and their partners must move beyond one-off interventions, programs, and professional development towards an approach where mental health and wellbeing is integrated in the core mandate of public education.
Well-being and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) have become increasingly top priorities in Canadian schools as concerns rise about the mental health and well-being of both staff and students. However, the vast majority of education leaders have not been trained to lead efforts that would integrate well-being and SEL across entire school districts through programs, policies, and practices that transform school cultures for the long term. This means that SEL initiatives are often one-off and unsustainable, and are restrained from becoming a reality across schools in every province and territory. On the flipside, emerging practice demonstrates that a Compassionate Systems Leadership approach – which combines mindfulness, compassion system-wide thinking and action – can strengthen the capacity of education leaders to effectively embed well-being at all levels of the education system.
Developing self-awareness, mindfulness, and compassion for self and others.
Building one’s awareness through intentional listening as well as clear and respectful communication, which can lead to more effective problem-solving among teams.
Understanding the underlying elements that shape a school’s organizational culture (i.e. its system of beliefs, values, behaviours, ways of communicating, etc.) as a way to determine levers for change.
The first step in building leadership capacity is to increase awareness of yourself – your own values and biases.
Everyone has the potential to create or support change regardless of their position within the school and district. More impact can be achieved when school leaders and staff learn and act together.
Developing skills and knowledge is an ongoing effort of practicing what you’ve learned, reflecting on what’s working and not working, and being open to adapting.
A Compassionate Systems Leadership approach guides education leaders in developing their own SEL skills as they grow in their ability to implement system-wide change in support of staff and student well-being. When education leaders cultivate compassion through SEL skills including empathy, sound decision-making, and self-regulation, they are better able to create educational cultures that emphasize well-being, understand barriers to change, and encourage other staff to contribute towards the change process.
Schroeder, J. & Rowcliffe, P. (2019). Growing Compassionate Systems Leadership: A toolkit. Retrieved from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/media/systems_toolkit_2019_final.pdf
Despite recent progress towards supporting LGBTQ2+-inclusive education, ensuring that both teachers and students who identify as sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) experience belonging, safety, and security in their schools and communities remains an ongoing challenge. A national survey of Canadian high school students found that 64% of LGBTQ2+ students reported feeling unsafe at school. Similarly, research has shown that LGBTQ2+ teachers are less likely to come out to their administration and 33% had been warned to not come out at school by family, friends, and other educators.
“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 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.”
-(Elementary school principal)
Although many school districts have SGM-specific policies in place, research points to the ongoing need for school districts to invest the time into building a genuinely accepting and accommodating LGBTQ2+-inclusive school culture that supports and promotes the well-being of LGBTQ2+ teachers and students. Taking a LGBTQ2+-inclusive approach to education is a shared responsibility and school leaders, colleagues, and parents all play an important role in understanding how to best support and learn from the experiences and perspectives of LGBTQ2+ teachers and students.
Grace, A. P. (2015). Part II with K. Wells. Growing into resilience: Sexual and gender minority youth in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 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. (Published in English & French.) Taylor, C., & Peter, T., with McMinn, T. L., Elliott, T., Beldom, S., Ferry, A., Gross, Z., Paquin, S., & Schacter, K. (2011). Every class in every school: The first national climate survey on homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian schools. Final report. Toronto, ON: Egale Canada Human Rights Trust. Tompkins, J., Kearns, L., & Mitton-Kükner, J. (2019). Queer educators in schools: The experiences of four beginning teachers. Canadian Journal of Education, 42(2), 385-414. Retrieved from: https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/3448/2727
References
This small-group online mindfulness workshop will take place via Zoom and is primarily for school-based K-12 educators and anyone interested in educator mental health and well-being. 20 participants maximum per session.
This small-group experiential workshop will provide a variety of mindfulness/attention practices that promote stress management. We will examine how understanding the physiology of stress, through the lens of mindfulness, can support educators and helping professionals in responding to situations with greater resilience.
Mindfulness promotes self-regulation, resilience, stress management, and improved relationships, thereby supporting positive mental health and well-being in students, staff and parents, leading to transformations in school culture.
The workshop will include one of the foundational mindfulness practices called the “body scan,” which is usually done lying down on a yoga mat or other comfortable surface. This practice can also be done seated in a chair. Please have ready a yoga mat, cushion and blanket for your own self care and comfort.
During these 90-minute INTERACTIVE presentations, participants are encouraged to have their camera and microphone turned on as the intention of the workshop is to build community and provide a space for educators to feel supported and learn some simple, yet effective mindfulness techniques that can be used daily to support their well-being.
About Mindfulness Everyday
At Mindfulness Everyday, we envision a society in which we relate to others, the environment, and ourselves with clarity and compassion. We promote mindfulness practices to enhance positive mental and physical health, compassionate action and resilience by providing stress reduction training and life skills for young people, educators, professional support staff and parents in the schools, and for organizations and members of the community.
Schools across Canada have had to adapt amid the global pandemic, resulting in many students learning remotely. Teachers are being asked to lead learning virtually in the family home while families are being asked to support students in ways that may be unfamiliar and potentially overwhelming. While schools are important for a child’s learning outcomes, research has demonstrated that positive family involvement can have a significant impact on student achievement. This doesn’t mean that schools cannot make a difference, but rather these unprecedented circumstances are calling on schools and families to work in partnership to support student learning. Here are some questions that teachers and families can ask when developing and implementing home-based learning activities, including tips to support student participation:
• Developing online activities is difficult. Don’t try to recreate the school classroom at the family dinner table. Just having worksheets and powerpoint slides online is not the answer.
• Find teachable moments in everyday activities including cooking/baking, board games, reading a storybook, etc.
• It’s important to keep an open line of communication between teachers and families to identify the diverse needs of students and their households (e.g. level of expertise, interests, access to resources, culture, language).
• Literacy and math are fundamental skills required for daily life. Learning how to read and write and do mental math occurs gradually over time.
• Try finding little ways that prompt children to practice mental math. For example, when playing the card game ‘go fish’ you can’t ask for a card directly, but make up arithmetic questions (e.g. you can’t ask for 10 but can ask for a card whose face value is equal to 8+2).
• Think quality over quantity. We should never underestimate the learning that can happen through talking. Some parents are still working and at best have only gained commute time.
• Ministries/Departments of education are recommending 5 hours a week doing school work – that’s it. This means just 1 hour per day of school work (e.g. 20 minutes of reading a book, 10 minutes of math exercises, and 30 minutes of teacher-led time a day).
If families are deciding not to complete teacher-assigned activities, this might mean that families are finding it challenging to play school in the home. A partnership between school and home is one where each partner has something to gain and shouldn’t feel exhausting to either teachers or families. This can be achieved by integrating curriculum expectations within everyday family activities in ways that consider their interests and unique needs. Creating learning experiences that are family-centered can help to better support student learning – and most importantly– student well-being during this time.
Baking/cooking with a twist: Students can make family treasured dishes/treats with a family member but teachers can put in the challenge that only the student can read the recipe. This can allow targeting of specific language and mathematics curriculum expectations yet monopolize on family activities.
Researching with a twist: Students can invite family members and friends to share experiences about topics (e.g., earthquakes, geographical regions, historical events, gardening) from their own work, home, travel, and festivities. Students can capture what they learned from the interview in a video or written report.
Family challenges: Families can be challenged to make safety devices that protect an egg during a drop or build stable towers/structures/forts. Students can reflect on all family members devices/structures and make a video to report which strategies worked best (using teacher requested terminology).
Card games with a twist: Families can play card games like ‘go fish’ where you cannot ask for a card directly but make up arithmetic questions. (e.g., you cannot ask for 10 but can ask for a card whose face value is equal to 8+2).
Family math: Family members (even high school students) can share their strategies in solving a mental math problem a couple days a week for 10 mins or less.
Family reading/writing: The student reads one page and a family member reads the next. Families can demonstrate what they learned in the reading by completing a comic jam to the prompt “what happens next (in a follow up book or in the next pages)?”. Families fold a paper into quarters (to make comic frames). The student and family member take turns filling out the comic frames. For example, the student completes the first comic frame and a family member has to pick up on ideas within the first comic frame to complete the next comic frame. They take turns until all frames are complete.
TDSB mathematics for families website: This website contains weekly age related family mental math challenges with videos that represent the strategies families submitted to solve the mental math challenge. https://sites.google.com/tdsb.on.ca/tdsb-mathematics-for-families/home
Bray, A., & Tangney, B. (2017). Technology usage in mathematics education research–A systematic review of recent trends. Computers & Education, 114, 255-273.
Campbell, M., & Boyland, J. (2018). Why students need more ‘math talk’. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/why-students-need-more-math-talk-104034
Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C., & Felten, P. (2014). Engaging students as partners in learning and teaching: A guide for faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Civil, M., & Bernier, E. (2006). Exploring images of parental participation in mathematics education: Challenges and possibilities. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 8(3), 309-330.
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Fenstermacher, G. (1994, revised 1997). On the distinction between being a student and being a learner. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
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Healey, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: Students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. York: HE Academy.
Kehler, A., Verwoord, R., & Smith, H. (2017). We are the Process: Reflections on the Underestimation of Power in Students as Partners in Practice. International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(1).
Kraft, M. A., & Monti-Nussbaum, M. (2017). Can schools enable parents to prevent summer learning loss? A text-messaging field experiment to promote literacy skills. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 674(1), 85-112.
Koralek, D., & Collins, R. (2020). How most children learn to read. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-most-children-learn-read
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2020). Learning to read and write: What research reveals. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/learning-read-and-write-what-research-reveals
Olsen, J. R. (2015). Five keys for teaching mental math. Mathematics Teacher, 108(7), 543-548.
Rapke, T., & De Simone, C. (2020). 4 things about maths success that might surprise parents. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/4-things-weve-learned-about-math-success-that-might-surprise-parents-135114
Rapke, T., & Norquay, N. (2018). MATH JAMS: Students analysing, comparing, and
building on one another’s work. OAME Gazette, 56, 25-30.
Silinskas, G., & Kikas, E. (2019). Math homework: Parental help and children’s academic outcomes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 59, 101784.
The benefits of mindfulness for both students and teachers have led to a growing interest in mindfulness practice within school settings over the last decade. Mindfulness is our ability to bring full attention to our experience in the present moment. However, a Harvard study found that our minds wander 47% of the time, disrupting our ability to remain focused on the present moment. This study also found that a wandering mind tends to be an unhappy mind (i.e. fewer experiences of positive emotions and a reduced sense that life is meaningful, worthwhile, and has purpose). Over time, this can have a negative impact on our resilience, learning, and overall well-being. Yet, recent research has demonstrated that daily mindfulness practice (e.g. focusing on the breath or mindful movement) can change the structure and function of the brain in highly beneficial ways.
1. Begin with yourself. When teachers commit to a personal mindfulness practice and apply it to their teaching, there is often a positive ripple effect in the classroom. Practicing also provides the embodied experience necessary to teach and lead mindfulness in ways that are sensitive to students’ experiences.
2. Ensure mindfulness practices are introduced in secular ways. By introducing research-based mindfulness practices, teaching will be consistent with current scientific understanding and inclusive for all students.
3. Offer mindfulness practices that are trauma-sensitive. Mindfulness practices should be designed to support the safety and stability of students – particularly for students who are experiencing high levels of stress and/or who have a history of trauma.
4. Integrate mindfulness into a culturally responsive and inclusive approach to teaching. With equity at the centre, teachers are more likely to be responsive to the identities, contexts, backgrounds, histories, abilities, and needs of students as they develop their own mindfulness practices.
Cultivating mindfulness is beneficial for both teachers and students. When mindfulness is intentionally embedded in teaching and learning, entire school communities can experience improved well-being including lower levels of teacher stress and burnout, more positive teacher-student relationships, and improved student learning outcomes.
Murphy, S. (2019). Fostering Mindfulness: Building skills that students need to manage their attention, emotions, and behavior in classrooms and beyond. Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers.
Greater Good in Education (GGIE) of the University of California, Berkeley offers free research-based and informed strategies and practices for the social, emotional, and ethical development of students, for the well-being of the adults who work with them, and for cultivating positive school cultures.
Edutopia is a website and online community dedicated to sharing evidence and practitioner-based learning strategies for educating the whole child in K-12 classrooms.
UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Centre (MARC) is a centre devoted to fostering mindful awareness across the lifespan through education and research. There are a number of free guided mindfulness practices on this page.
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness is a website (created by Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness expert David Treleaven, PhD) devoted to resources for learning how to teach and lead mindfulness with an understanding of trauma.
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is a source for knowledge about high-quality, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL).
The Handbook of Mindfulness in Education is a publication that addresses the science and educational uses of mindfulness in schools.
Mindfulness Journal is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes papers that examine the latest research findings and best practices in mindfulness.
The Best Meditation Apps of 2019 is a list of 12 Mindfulness Apps rated the best of 2019 based on quality, reliability, and reviews. (All but one have a free version).
American Mindfulness Research Association (2020). “Figure 1. Mindfulness journal publications by year, 1980-2019”. Retrieved from American Mindfulness Research Association website. https://goamra.org/resources/
Abenavoli, Rachel & Jennings, Patricia & Harris, Alexis & Greenberg, Mark & Katz, Deirdre. (2013). The protective effects of mindfulness against burnout among educators. The Psychology of Education Review. ISSN 0262-4087.
Black, D. S., & Fernando, R. (2014). Mindfulness Training and Classroom Behaviour among Lower Income and Ethnic Minority Elementary School Children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23(7), 1242-1246.
Braun, S.S., Roeser, R.W., Mashburn, A.J. et al. (2019). Middle School Teachers’ Mindfulness, Occupational Health and Well-Being, and the Quality of Teacher-Student Interactions. Mindfulness 10, 245–255.
Brown, K. W. & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822– 848.
Caballero, C. Scherer, E., West, M.R, Mrazek, M.D., Gabrieli, C.F.O., & Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2019). Greater Mindfulness is Associated With better Academic achievement in Middle School. Mind, Brain, and Education. 13(3): 157-166.
Cannon, J. (2016). Education as the Practice of Freedom: A Social Justice Proposal for Mindfulness Educators. Purser, R.E., et al (Eds.). In Handbook of Mindfulness. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. pp. 397-409.
DeMauro, A.A., Jennings, P.A., Cunningham, T. et al. (2019). Mindfulness and Caring in Professional Practice: an Interdisciplinary Review of Qualitative Research. Mindfulness 10, 1969–1984.
Eva, A. & Thayer, N. (2017). The Mindful Teacher: Translating Research into Daily Well-Being. The Clearing House. Vol .90, No. 1, pp. 18-25.
Feuerborn, L.L., Gueldner, B. (2019). Mindfulness and Social-Emotional Competencies: Proposing Connections through a Review of the Research. Mindfulness, 10, 1707–1720.
Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 44–51.
Flook, L., Goldberg, S., Pinger, L., Bonus, K., & Davidson, R. (2013). Mindfulness for Teachers: A Pilot Study to Assess Effects on Stress, Burnout, and Teaching Efficacy. International Mind, Brain, and Education. 7(3): 182-195.
Flook, L., Susan L. Smalley, M. Jennifer Kitil, Brian M. Galla, Susan Kaiser-Greenland, Jill Locke, Eric Ishijima, and Connie Kasari. (2010). “Effects of Mindful Awareness Practices on Executive Functions in Elementary School Children.” Journal of Applied School Psychology, 26: 70–95.
Fritz M.M., Walsh L.C., Lyubomirsky S. (2017) Staying Happier. In: Robinson M., Eid M. (eds) The Happy Mind: Cognitive Contributions to Well-Being. Springer, Cham.
Greenberg M., Brown J, & Abenavoli R. (2016). Teacher Stress and Health: Effects on Teachers, Students, and Schools. Social emotional learning. The Pennsylvania State University, Issue Brief, 1-12.
John Meiklejohn, Catherine Phillips, M. Lee Freedman, Mary Lee Griffin, Gina Biegel, Andy Roach, Jenny Frank, Christine Burke, Laura Pinger, et al. (2012). Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the Resilience of Teachers and Students. Mindfulness, 3, 291-307.
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science, 330(6006): 932.
Leyland, A., Rowse, G., & Emerson, L. (2018). Experimental Effects of Mindfulness Inductions on Self-Regulation: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Emotion, 1-15.
MacDonald, H.Z. & Price, J.L. (2017) Emotional Understanding: Examining Alexithymia as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Empathy. Mindfulness, 8(6): 1644-1652.
Magee, R. V. (2019). The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
Murphy, S. (2019). Fostering Mindfulness: Building skills that students need to manage their attention, emotions, and behavior in classrooms and beyond. Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers.
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Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Oberle, E., Lawlor, M. S., Abbott, D., Thomson, K., Oberlander, T. F., & Diamond, A. (2015). Enhancing cognitive and social–emotional development through a simple-to-administer mindfulness-based school program for elementary school children: A randomized controlled trial. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 52-66.
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This webinar is primarily for school district leadership, principals, vice-principals, professional associations, policymakers, aspiring school leaders, and anyone interested in the well-being of school leaders.
Canadian school leaders are grappling with longer hours, increasing demands, and higher workloads than ever before, which is threatening principal recruitment, retention, and job performance. Work intensification involves managing condensed timelines and a simultaneous increase in the volume and complexity of tasks, activities, and other work demands. As effective school leaders are key to high-performing schools and healthy school environments, work intensification not only threatens school leader recruitment and retention, but also the well-being and performance of both staff and students.
This one-hour webinar originally broadcasted on June 8th, 2020 explored the results of recent studies conducted in Ontario and British Columbia on how principal wellness and the role of school leaders is changing, including strategies that professional associations, school districts, policymakers, and school leaders themselves can take to improve principals’ and vice-principals’ well-being.
Watch the webinar below:
Happy Teacher Revolution is a Baltimore-born, international movement with the mission to organize and conduct support groups for teachers in the field of mental health and wellness to increase teacher happiness, retention, and professional sustainability.
This one-hour experiential learning webinar originally broadcasted on May 28th, 2020 explored burnout, vicarious trauma, and self-care as a global professional development movement.
Watch the full webinar below:
ABOUT DANNA THOMAS
Danna Thomas is a former Baltimore City Public School teacher turned founder of a global initiative to support the mental health and wellness of educators. Her organization, Happy Teacher Revolution, is on a mission to increase teacher happiness, retention, and professional sustainability by providing educators with the time and space to heal, deal, and be real about the social-emotional demands they face on the job. Danna served as the national spokeswoman for the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) Maryland and the “Music for Mental Health” campaign. She is the recipient of the 2019 Johns Hopkins Community Hero Award and the 2019 Winner of the Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab. Danna’s favourite forms of self-care include playing backgammon, community hot yoga, and rocking out on the saxophone.
Five B.C. educators with different roles and a shared interest in supporting well-being, came together in a collaborative project to grow well-being across the Langley school district. Here’s how they did it, and what they learned from the process.
What started out as four individuals from different work roles, each of us having a shared goal of supporting well-being in schools, has become a collaborative passion project to grow and sustain well-being across our district. Through this article, we look back on our journey of learning and collaborating, reflecting on some of the insights we have gained about supporting staff well-being in school districts.
Thanks to an assistant superintendent who saw an unusual, but natural, alignment in our work, we formed our district wellness team in the fall of 2017. We each had different but complementary roles – a district principal for student services, a district teacher/counsellor and a human resources manager. We also brought a health authority partner onto our team, providing a valuable broader view of the communities within which the students and educators work and live.
We started our plans with a district-wide learning series on social emotional learning and well-being, to help staff understand the importance of this learning in schools and the amazing outcomes these skills and practices provide around student health, happiness and success. It became apparent that these were the same skills and practices that we needed to build as adults, both so we could model and teach them to students and for our own health and happiness. We were starting to see the importance of adult well-being to positive outcomes for both the adults and the students.
We decided to make teacher and staff well-being our project focus. One of our first objectives was to gain an awareness of how our staff were doing, and to understand their sense of well-being at work. We wanted to gather people together to start a discussion and generate some ideas to support well-being in our district. As with many exciting and challenging tasks, this project became much more complex than we anticipated, and also very rich and rewarding. We are now at the stage of reflecting on all that we have learned, to inform our plans for how to continue the work of supporting teacher and staff well-being in our district. We’d like to share some of the themes that have emerged for us so far as we analyze and reflect on our experiences and data.
Our work to date has underscored that well-being is holistic, encompassing interconnecting aspects. In particular, we have become aware of three important facets of staff well-being.
1. Well-being is individual. An important part of increasing well-being lies with the individual person. This assumption was our starting point, and it has remained an important aspect of how we understand well-being as holistic and interconnected. Focusing on growing staff well-being had us thinking about how to support practices of self-awareness and self-care. Much of the first year of our project was learning about social emotional skills and bringing that back to the district as learning conversations in the workplace. We found that sometimes just acknowledging that self-care matters and sharing what that looks like can go a long way in supporting people to take care of themselves, especially in helping professions where we are so used to caring for others.
2. Well-being is relational. The second interconnected part that became very clear is that well-being is relational and that we are better together, both in terms of productivity/success and in terms of health, happiness and overall well-being. The main focus of our second year was on the relational aspects in our well-being work. This led us to connect with Dr. Sabre Cherkowski. She was completing a multi-year research project on teacher well-being, where she and her colleague, Dr. Keith Walker, had built a theoretical and practical understanding of what it means for educators to flourish in their work.1 Her research was framed within a positive organizational perspective that highlighted how focusing on and supporting positive human capacities at work, such as compassion, humility, kindness, and forgiveness, had a positive and generative affect that often led to increases in other aspects of work such as creativity, productivity, innovation, and commitment to the organization.
We were interested in Dr. Cherkowski’s research approach of using a strength-based, appreciative perspective to notice and nurture what was already working well and what already gives staff a sense of well-being in their work. We were also interested in learning more about an appreciative approach to positive change, focusing on what happens when the whole system is invited into the conversation to reflect on how we might promote and support well-being across our district. With Dr. Cherkowski and the consent of our district, we designed a continuation of our learning series, inviting staff across the district to join us for three dinner events that offered an opportunity to:
At each event, Dr. Cherkowski guided some 150 attendees through a sequence of reflections and activities focused on:
The conversations that emerged created a safe, caring, uplifted environment where colleagues shared their dreams and desires in their work, as well as their challenges and struggles. The evenings became a space for building the relational processes necessary for the work of nurturing well-being for self and others in our own work contexts.
We observed that teams and individuals were now working on plans to connect what they were learning about flourishing to things they might try out in their context. One example was a principal who designed a “tree of flourishing” that she took to her teachers and staff. She suggested they fill out all the ways that they, their students, and their school community were experiencing well-being. As they filled out the tree over a course of a few weeks and posted it around the school, this gave them a sense of pride and ownership for all that was working well. It also provided a touchpoint for conversations around struggles and challenges, as there was a sense of being cared for by a larger community that was working together to tend to the entire tree. Within the challenging and seemingly never-ending work of meeting school goals for all students, this principal developed a tool that evoked a sense of hope, of joy, and of agency about being well together at work.
While participants in our dinner series were working on their inquiries, we were planning to find out more about how teachers and staff were doing with their well-being. We decided to conduct focus groups with teachers and staff in different roles. Our deeper learning from these focus groups is still to come as we work with this valuable data, but we have already learned some things from this process. The first is to bring your district leadership and your union groups into the process early. This was such a helpful process and a good reminder that everyone wants well-being. We are all working toward a common goal. The second one is that health and well-being is something people want to talk about. People want to tell their stories and they want to be heard. If you are going to ask the questions, you have to be prepared to listen to the answers and be willing to co-create a plan that moves discussion into action.
3. Well-being is system-wide. Reminding ourselves to engage in our change work from the level of the system is an especially important piece, even though it often proves difficult to navigate and implement. Our commitment to growing staff well-being across the district meant that we needed to think about the system in all its interrelated parts to embed well-being for the long term. Looking back at our approach through a systems-lens, we:
We have learned that systems are relational entities, and that we need to take care to avoid assigning blame to any part of the system as a separate actor. At the same time, we need to avoid always looking outside the system for our solutions. We have come to understand that “we” are also the system – individuals and groups carrying out our work together toward shared goals, influencing and impacting all other parts of the system. There can be a feeling of empowerment in knowing that we are the ones who inform, create and follow (or not) the policies and practices of “the system.” Many of these practices are helpful to keep things moving. They create a sense of order and common understanding that help define and support our work. It can also be frustrating to realize that our implication in the system also means that many of our practices and our ways of doing things come from a historical context that is no longer applicable or helpful to us. As we learn more about systems change we are building the courage to look at our ways of working compassionately and to be open to the possibilities that follow.
As we begin to understand the interconnectedness of the system, we are also reminded that the feeling of efficacy around systems change is also very important. There is a balance between knowing that some larger changes take time and will require patience, and that other small actions can happen quickly. Focusing our attention on the ways these small changes can impact the larger system over time and contribute to well-being is at the heart of Cherkowski and Walker’s work on flourishing in schools. We are developing a sense of agency, a power to be able co-create an emerging future where decisions and practices around well-being become a primary component of our culture: the way we do things.
One of our most important learnings so far, and what may turn out to be the “secret sauce” for the work of growing well-being for all in schools, is the importance of bringing in multiple voices and ways of knowing. We also need time, space and resources for this work to become sustainable. A few passionate people cannot do this alone or in their “spare time” without it impacting their own health and well-being. In the next part of our journey we will expand our team and look at ways to make this work sustainable and impactful for the long term.
Illustration: iStock
First published in Education Canada, June 2020
1 S. Cherkowski and K. Walker, K. Teacher Wellbeing: Noticing, nurturing, and sustaining flourishing in schools (Burlington, ON: Word and Deed Press, 2018).
It was my first day trying meditation out on my students.
Do you try meditation out on somebody?
No, I suppose you do it with them.
But for me it felt like a try out. One that was going very wrong.
I had tried meditation for myself about ten years previous. My vice-principal at the time did it regularly, and had begun a meditation group after school. Although we only managed to have three sessions before it disbanded – after school being a prime time for other meetings, interviews, extra-curriculars – the peace and stillness I remember experiencing during that last session, when for a few minutes my mind had actually become blank and I felt in its blankness that it had expanded in some way – was motivation enough to try meditation with my class when a colleague gave me these CDs she had bought at a workshop.
“You might like these. Probably better for older kids.”
My colleague taught Grade 3 and it was my first year teaching Grade 8.
“Sure. Thanks.”
The CDs – Open Our Hearts, Christian Meditation for Children – were a set of four meditations, five minutes, seven minutes, nine minutes, and eleven minutes.
They sat on my desk for four weeks before Joshua said, “Hey Mrs. Ranby. Are we ever gonna use those?”
“Of course we are Joshua. I was just waiting for the new month to begin.”
“Sweet.”
So I had felt pressure by the turning of the calendar to March 1st, and there we were, me telling the kids to get back to their seats, and all of us feeling not at all relaxed and calm.
It had all started so optimistically.
Innocently.
“So class, you’ve heard a bit about meditation in health class, but now we’re actually going to practice it. Remember, it’s about calming your mind. You get to actually think of nothing. You can go home and answer “we did nothing at school” and you’d be right!”
I grinned at my joke.
You could hear the sound of crickets. The 25 fourteen year olds just looked at me.
Well, one gave me a pity laugh.
“Good one, Mrs. Ranby.”
“Thank you Ben.”
I carried on.
“So you can go anywhere in the class where you will be comfortable. It’s important that you’re comfortable. If you want to lay down, sit against a wall, whatever. Just be sure you can be quiet and still…”
What was I thinking?
Except for a couple of kids who laid completely down on the floor, every other one sat around the periphery of the room. Against the brick walls, looking nice and comfortable.
I sat up in my chair, feet on the floor, feeling pumped and competent and pressed “play.”
I didn’t realize they were all going to do that as well.
More on that later.
The CD begins with a song and a short scripture reading, and then the mantra: Ma-ra-na-tha, which means Come our Lord. The mantra fades out and then there is silence, for five minutes.
And I closed my eyes, trying to say the mantra silently, trying to clear my mind, but mostly thinking – meditation rocks. They are all quiet! No, not quiet…silent. Perfectly and completely silent. How good am I? Why didn’t I do this before? Even Ben is silent! And he’s never silent. They’ve longed for this. They practically begged me to do this. Meditation…who knew? Can’t hear a single thing…
And then I made my mistake.
By this time we were probably three minutes in. Doesn’t seem long, but three minutes of silence when you’re just waiting for a kid to start laughing, or worse, can seem like an eternity.
But they were killing it! And I just had to open my eyes, to see them all concentrating, trying to clear their minds, to see them relaxed, in states of total calmness, not moving a muscle, totally concentrating…
Yep. Every student was on their cell phone.
They had seized the opportunity to relax and when they knew I’d have my eyes closed for a full five minutes, well…
Let’s just say they relaxed the old-fashioned way.
With technology.
That’s why they were so silent.
I was aghast surveying the scene.
Even Lydia, sprawled out on the floor, was texting someone!
It was Ben who looked up first and saw me, eyes open.
“Uh guys…”
Everyone else looked up at Ben, and then at me.
Busted.
They put their phones away.
“Move back to your seats.”
The remaining 70 seconds of the meditation was spent with all the students at their seats, heads on their desks, being silent.
I took a few deep breaths to try to get back to relaxation land, but that ship had sailed.
Still…when the gong sounded at the end of the five minutes, there was a sense of calmness in the room.
Lydia spoke first.
“Sorry Mrs. Ranby,” she said.
The other students nodded.
“So…will we do it again?” Joshua asked.
“Would you like to?” I asked. I tried to be angry, but deep breathing and mantras and silence and anger just don’t go together.
“Yes,” they all said, as one voice.
“Ok..no cell phones, no moving places, just at your desk, eyes closed.”
They nodded.
“Let’s try the seven minute one!” Joshua suggested.
“Whoa whoa whoa…don’t think we’re quite there. Let’s do the five minute one again.”
“Fair enough.”
So I pressed play, the only pressing of play in the classroom, and we meditated together as best we could.
Lydia fell asleep, Preston started drumming a pen on his desk, Alyssa began giggling, joined by Maddy and Sophie R., but Ben stayed quiet. And so did Joshua.
And so did I.
And for five minutes we all tried to concentrate on nothing. On being still. On letting our cares float away.
And when the gong sounded at the end of the five minutes, I felt relaxed and recharged, all at the same time.
And when Joshua looked at me and nodded, I agreed with him.
“You’re right Joshua…we could have handled the seven minute one.”
Photos: Adobe Stock
Cofounded by Heidi Bornstein and Stephen Chadwick in 2009, Mindfulness everyday is a diverse team of experienced professionals dedicated to educator well-being. Mindfulness Everyday offers various mindfulness programs and practices for educators to provide them with the skills and coping strategies required to support their own mental and physical health.
This webinar first broadcasted on April 15th, provided an experiential introduction to mindfulness research and practices that benefit educators personally and professionally.
Watch the full webinar below:
About Mindfulness Everyday
At Mindfulness Everyday, we envision a society in which we relate to others, the environment, and ourselves with clarity and compassion. We promote mindfulness practices to enhance positive mental and physical health, compassionate action and resilience by providing stress reduction training and life skills for young people, educators, professional support staff and parents in the schools, and for organizations and members of the community.