The challenges of measuring wellbeing in schools
A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
Dr. Arlo Kempf, PhD, University of Toronto
Winter 2018
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 1
IntroductionOver the past decade, questions concerning student wellbeing have moved steadily to
the centre of education policy in Ontario, in Canada, and internationally. In response
to what might be termed a crisis in youth wellbeing, policy language and foci suggest
a broad move to address questions of student physical, emotional, psychological, and
socio-cultural wellbeing. The notion of health is thus multifaceted in the educational
context and consistently linked by policymakers with questions of academic achievement.
Concurrently, Canadian boards of education and ministries of education have increasingly
turned their focus to student achievement (an idea often as broadly defined as it is
narrowly measured). With little evidence of any crisis of public faith in the Ontario K-12
education system, the Ontario Ministry of Education has strived to provide measures
of public accountability which have included increased standardization of curriculum,
reporting, and measurement across the province.
Beyond numeracy and literacy, global competencies are increasingly promoted by policy
as important areas which require better promotion and understanding by districts, schools,
administrators, and teachers (CMEC, N.D. & 2017; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016b).
With the current ministerial push to link accountability with measurement, questions
about how to evaluate and/or assess student wellbeing are among the current ministerial
priorities, and certainly promise to dominate the agendas of future policymakers at the
provincial and board levels. This review investigates the challenges, limitations, and
possibilities of the current policy conversation around measuring student wellbeing and
investigates some of the related implications for teachers’ work in Ontario.
... policy language and foci suggest a broad move to address questions of student physical, emotional, psychological, and socio-cultural wellbeing.
2 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
The first section of this paper discusses the current climate and context surrounding the
measurement of wellbeing in Ontario’s publicly funded schools and raises questions about
the objectives of wellbeing strategies and measurement of wellbeing in K-12 schooling in
Ontario. The second section discusses the challenges of measuring wellbeing and suggests
that accurate measurement in these domains is challenging at the best of times, as the
phenomena under study are linked to myriad factors in individuals’ lives. This section looks closely at the challenges of measuring wellbeing in schools and, in the case of children,
raises questions about the relationship between teacher wellbeing and student wellbeing.
The third section considers the place of wellbeing and the teaching, learning, and
measurement thereof in schools. It also looks at the challenges implicit in teachers working
to provide frontline wellbeing support to students—considering both what is and is not
possible, as well as what is and is not appropriate. The final section of this paper offers a
series of brief considerations for next steps in terms of any realistic move to promoting
wellbeing in Ontario’s schools.
Climate and contextWhat do we mean by wellbeing?
Before moving on, a clarification of terms is needed. This review will focus on the notion
of wellbeing, taken here to refer to mental, socio-emotional, and psychological health
and wellness. Ontario’s Ministry of Education provides a useful, if not expansive, definition
of wellbeing as follows: “Well-being is a positive sense of self, spirit and belonging that
we feel when our cognitive, emotional, social and physical needs are being met. It is
supported through equity and respect for our diverse identities and strengths” (Ministry
of Education, 2016a, p. 3). Although difficult to define across a diverse student population,
the integration of the notion of spirit is important here—alongside the cognitive, the
emotional, and the social—as this has too often been excluded from conversations about
wellbeing in education. The link to equity is also significant, as it offers the possibility of
shifting away from individual pathologies and/or needs to a framework recognizing the
rights of individuals and groups, as well as the responsibilities of the structures which
serve these individuals and groups. For the purposes of this review, however, the term
‘wellbeing’ will specifically exclude the domains of physical health, but treat themes related
to but distinct from mental, socio-emotional, and psychological health and wellness.
This distinction, as illustrated in the next section, is useful for understanding the specific
challenges and opportunities of measuring spiritual, cognitive, emotional, and social
health and wellness.
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 3
The current policy context: Why this conversation and why now?
Rising and widespread levels of reported mental health issues or mental illness among
young people in Ontario have become an increasingly significant topic and area of
provincial policy across the education, children and youth services, health, and other
policy domains (American College Health Association, 2016). Within education specifically,
the Ontario Ministry of Education has placed wellbeing at the centre of its vision for
the future of Ontario’s public education systems. The Ministry’s Achieving Excellence: A
Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario lists wellbeing among its four central goals, stating:
“All children and students will develop enhanced mental and physical health, a positive
sense of self and belonging, and the skills to make positive choices” (Ontario Ministry of
Education, 2014, p. 3). Nestled within an overall ministerial vision of achievement and
excellence, wellbeing is increasingly something to be accomplished within schools or,
to put it another way, wellbeing may be a mark of school success. See also the Ontario
Ministry of Education’s 2016c discussion paper, Well-being in Our Schools, Strength in Our
Society, for more on the Ministry’s work in this area.
Linking wellbeing and global competencies
Student wellbeing and success are further linked within the Ontario Ministry’s document,
Towards Defining 21st Century Competencies for Ontario (2016b), as well as within the
Council of Ministers of Education of Canada’s (CMEC) Pan-Canadian Global Competencies
Descriptions (N.D.). These works outline various frameworks for and articulations of
competencies characterized by a focus on students becoming critical, creative, inquisitive,
and resourceful problem-solvers. Among the important contributions of the 21st century
competencies movement or global competencies movement (Marzano & Heflebower,
2012; Griffin, McGaw, & Care, 2012; National Research Council, 2012; Tough, 2012; Barell,
2010; Dede, 2010; Ananiadou & Claro, 2009; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; European Commission,
2007; and others) is the formal and insistent linking of key skills, with key dispositions to
be developed in students. This is to say that what students should know is inextricably
linked to how students should know, as well as to how students should be; namely,
resilient, creative, inquisitive, and interpersonally proficient.
The Ontario Ministry of Education’s Towards Defining 21st Century Competencies for Ontario
outlines three domains associated with these competencies: the intrapersonal, the
interpersonal, and the cognitive (2016a, pp. 3-20). The Council of Ministers of Education
of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Global Competencies Descriptions offers six categorical
sets of domains: critical thinking and problem solving; innovation, creativity, and
entrepreneurship; learning to learn/self-awareness and self-direction; collaboration;
communication; and global citizenship and sustainability (CMEC, N.D.). When taken
4 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
together, these competencies offer nothing short of a curriculum for personality including
academic, social, moral, emotional, and physical elements of who and how children
should be. The Ontario Ministry of Education argues, “Well-being in early years and school
settings is about helping children and students become resilient, so that they can make
positive and healthy choices to support learning and achievement both now and in the
future” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 3).
Wellbeing, from a policy perspective, is thus at the heart of or at least inextricably linked
to student success within these domains. In keeping with an international evolution of
the literature, the recent Ontario Ministry of Education commitments (2017) appear in
line with a broad trend in education, which links wellbeing to proficiency with global
competencies (OECD, 2014a, 2014b, & 2003; Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012; Saavedra & Opfer,
2012; P21, 2011; Rychen, 2003; Standards Council of Canada, 2013; and Singapore Ministry
of Education, 2010).
Challenges and limitationsThe push to measure wellbeing
The call for the promotion of wellbeing has, for Ontario’s Ministry of Education, been
accompanied by a concurrent call for its measurement. On advancing and ultimately
achieving student wellbeing, the Ministry explains, “To assess progress towards this goal,
Ontario will [w]ork with our partners to identify the factors that support student wellbeing
and then adopt ways to measure them” (Ministry of Education, 2016a, p. 16). The role
of schools in this domain is thus likely to continue to evolve; a change characterized
in part by an ever-blurrier line between the teaching of content and the teaching of
competencies that include all aspects of personal development—two potentially
“Well-being in early years and school settings is about helping children and students become resilient ....”
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 5
disparate domains. While non-subject-based learning, such as character education, has
always been part of formal schooling, there have scarcely been measures of character
on which the success of a system, a school, a teacher, or a student depends. If that which
matters is to be measured, questions about who is responsible for student wellbeing will
soon arise.
In Ontario, achievement drivers have been closely associated with standardization and
measurability as well as simply or easily communicated outcomes. Among the more
significant features of this policy direction was the creation of the Education Quality and
Accountability Office in 1996 with the passage of the Education Quality and Accountability
Office Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 11, and the introduction of province-wide standardized test
in Grades 3, 6, 9, and 10. As an increasingly publicized culture of measuring of students,
questions have arisen about whether schools are measuring the right things in order to
best support students and student success. Amid a larger discourse of accountability
and demonstrable outcomes, the issues of what precisely constitutes wellbeing and how
wellbeing will be measured, by whom, with what instruments, and to what ends are thus
pressing and timely concerns. In terms of the broader politics of assessment, we need to
critically interrogate calls to broaden what gets measured. While standardized measures
are indeed too narrow to tell us very much about children, the solution to this problem
is not necessarily broader tests. Instead, we should be looking at different measures and
specifically, teacher-led assessments to better understand what and how well children are
learning. Good tests are not the only solution to bad tests.
The act of measuring does not, in and of itself or automatically, lead to improvements
in the element(s) being measured. Before moving on to a discussion of the foreseeable
challenges of the measurement of wellbeing, there is a first principle of sorts, which
must be addressed. Somewhere at or near the centre of the conversation about the
measurement of wellbeing, there must be a clear reason for this measurement in the
first place and indeed, for our interest in student wellbeing. Why do we want to know if a
... questions about who is responsible for student wellbeing will soon arise.
6 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
student is experiencing high or low levels of wellbeing? Is it simply because high levels
of wellbeing assist in school-based learning? Such intentions are tested by a willingness
to overlook student wellbeing when its promotion hinders academic performance; for
example, the common practice of forcing students with test anxiety to write EQAO tests.
The act of measuring does not, in
and of itself or automatically, lead
to improvements in the element(s)
being measured.
This is important as we grapple with ever-evolving understandings, not just of wellbeing
but of what responsibilities schools should have to foster wellbeing. Is it so students are
set on a good course in life, exhibiting behaviours related to or even predicting successful
adult lives—understood in terms of social, professional, and other realms? Put simply, will
we measure wellbeing to boost academic performance or to support lifelong wellbeing?
The wellbeing policy conversation often begins with the argument that greater wellbeing
supports greater academic achievement and that the absence of wellbeing diminishes
academic achievement (Ontario Ministry of Education 2016b, 2013, & 2012; Ferguson
& Power, 2014; Slade, 2015; Wang, Harari, Hao, Zhou, & Campbell, 2015; Public Health
England, 2014; Basch, 2011; Paulus, 2011; Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion, 2010;
Burns & Rapee, 2006; Vessey & McGowan, 2006; and others). Other publications point to
the promotion of wellbeing among students as an end in itself, with long term positive
consequences into adulthood (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016a; Layard, Clark,
Cornaglia, Powdthavee, & Vernoit, 2014; Schonert-Reichl, Smith, Zaidman-Zai & Hertzman,
2012; Gordon, 2005; and others). The Ontario Ministry of Education explains:
If our goal in Ontario is for all of our students to become active members of their
communities, able to bring about positive change and to flourish in society, we
must heighten our focus on wellbeing as a crucial prerequisite for long-term
success. We must also acknowledge that the well-being of our children and youth
is our priority as a society. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016a, p. 2)
In this vision, we see wellbeing positioned as a goal which is worthy apart from any
implications for academic achievement. We also see the wellbeing of young people as a
common societal goal—central to socio-cultural success. This review shares the politics of
this understanding of the value of wellbeing: all promotion of wellbeing in schools should
be undertaken primarily for the good of the child, independent in its primary intent of
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 7
any particular academic or achievement goal. At a minimum, this separation is needed
in recognition that achievement/success criteria change frequently and are subject
to political concerns, while the goals and elements of wellbeing may be distinct from
practices that improve academic success. Best practices in the promotion of wellbeing
may as well evolve out of step with curricular and assessment practices in schools. Most
of what schools do and demand is not necessarily designed to make students well. While
acknowledging that being well may help students succeed in school, school success does
not necessarily make students well.
... we see wellbeing positioned
as a goal which is worthy apart
from any implications for
academic achievement.
The complicated mechanics of assessing wellbeing in schools: Measuring a moving (and far away) target
The promotion of wellbeing has a long history in education, with physical health education
stretching back to ancient Greece and mental health increasingly seen as a priority by
policymakers in the 20th century (Ferguson & Power, 2014). While physical education is
frequently a subject unto itself—a discrete curriculum area often linked with teaching
and learning about diet and human development—wellbeing is less established and less
defined in schools, with its causes and effects woven into and out of the intellectual and
emotional lives of students. Working across these related domains is the Comprehensive
School Health (CSH) model. Established in the 1980s, the CSH approach takes a somewhat
holistic approach to understanding wellbeing and suggests the need to understand
and focus on whole-school health by intertwining considerations of the physical,
cognitive, emotional, and psychological. A CSH model considers pedagogy, social and
physical domains, school policy related to health, and community partnerships and
services (Veugelers & Schwartz, 2010). In the Ontario context, given the integrated
approach suggested by the Ministry of Education (2016a, 2016b), the promotion of
wellbeing in Ontario schools will likely be undertaken within and across multiple
domains simultaneously, embracing at least some of the CSH approach, toward a goal of
overall health.
The jump from the promotion of wellbeing to the measurement of wellbeing is
challenging and complicated. A measurement of overall wellbeing will inevitably
require some disaggregation of its elements and results to understand various wellness
8 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
domains. Ferguson & Power (2014) offer a highly useful review of wellbeing measurement
instruments including the Early Development Instrument (Janus & Offord, 2007; and Janus
& Duku, 2007); the Middle Years Development Instrument (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2012);
and the “Tell Them From Me” initiative from thelearningbar.com. As Ferguson & Power
(2014) suggest, these may be best suited for understanding student wellbeing in the
aggregate, at the population level, and therefore may not offer a model for measuring the
wellbeing of individual students. It is unclear whether feasible instruments currently exist
to perform such measures in relation to and within schooling contexts.
The jump from the promotion
of wellbeing to the measurement
of wellbeing is challenging
and complicated.
Measuring wellbeing: Questions of reliability
Putting aside for the moment questions surrounding the rationale and moving beyond
the question of whether or not we should measure wellbeing, there may be much more
work needed in order to develop valid and reliable instruments for measuring individual
student wellbeing. That is to say, even if it were a good idea, it may not be possible at this
time. Within the fields of measurement, psychology, and psychometrics, best practices and
instruments for achieving accurate measurements of wellbeing are constantly evolving.
The fundamental challenge of linking correlates of wellbeing to specific factors, while
separating them from others, remains for now firmly in place. The psychology of those
being measured affects the measure, while the measures can psychologically impact
those being measured (Oishi, Schimmack, Diener, Kim-Prieto, Scollon, & Choi, 2007; Wirtz,
Kruger, Scollon, & Diener, 2003; and Thomas & Diener, 1990).
The challenge of isolating school community-specific impacts on wellbeing
In addition to the ongoing advances common to any field, in-school measurement comes
with the unique challenges of adaptation, given the varied populations under study or
being measured, e.g., age, location, socio-cultural diversity, thereby suggesting that good
measurement might be adaptive, responsive, and varied. This poses a serious challenge
to any sort of standardized measure. The Ministry of Education’s most recent (September,
2017) statement referring to the promotion of wellbeing suggests the current framework
for academic measurement may be adapted in order to support the measurement of
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 9
wellbeing. The Ministry’s September 6 briefing reads, “[T]he province aims to… [u]pdate
provincial assessment and reporting practices, including EQAO, to make sure they are
culturally relevant, measure a wider range of learning, and better reflect student wellbeing
and equity” (Ministry of Education, 2017). While it is uncertain precisely how this will
unfold, it is clear that the measurement of wellbeing requires unique tools, specifically
separate from those used to measure academic success.
The fundamental challenge of
linking correlates of wellbeing to
specific factors, while separating
them from others, remains for now
firmly in place.
Further, the measurement of student wellbeing in schools presents unique challenges, if
the results, i.e., data on how well students are, are somehow used as proxy measures for
school or teacher performance. This challenge stems from the irreducibility of the many
situational factors which contribute to student wellbeing and student illness, including
There is no clear way to measure the precise impact of schools on student wellbeing.
the home, peer group, school environment, classroom, and additional structural and
environmental factors.
There is no clear way to measure the precise impact of schools on student wellbeing.
This is not to say that wellbeing is an impossible or misguided goal, but instead that its
measurement cannot, at this time, determine schools’ distinct and discrete impact on
overall student wellbeing.
10 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
With significant implications for schools, given the time and resource constraints presented
by measuring large populations, the work of Schwarz & Strack, (1999) suggests that
situational factors can be particularly difficult to account for on instruments which use
self-reporting techniques, a common approach used in school wellbeing measurement
instruments. In the previous section, this review considered the first principle of why we
measure (and/or should measure) student wellbeing. Recognizing the challenges of valid and
reliable measurement tools and techniques, a second fundamental question arises: can we
accurately and reliably measure and interpret individual student wellbeing in schools? Scholar
and psychologist, Ed Diener, a renowned expert on wellbeing and its measurement,
suggests in his meta-analysis of the current state of the field of wellbeing measurement,
that we may have a long way to go. While he notes a variety of promising measures, his
comments are instructive in terms of where we are at the moment. He argues:
[W]e have initial knowledge of the psychological processes affecting some of the
measures, but we do not yet have a complete and thorough theoretical model of
these factors…. In sum, we have made much progress, but have much farther to
go .... After all, even if we measure well-being well, we may not understand the
processes leading to it. A major issue is causality. The majority of the studies in this
field, virtually all, are conducted using cross-sectional correlational designs. Because
of this tendency, we usually do not know whether the correlates we discover of
wellbeing are causes of well-being, results of well-being, or that they both result
from some common third variable such as personality. Until we begin understanding
more about causality, we will not understand the true structures underlying what we
study. (Diener, 2009, pp. 268-9)
The profound and substantive challenges of the measurement of wellbeing are widely
recognized beyond Diener and his foundational work (White, Slemp, & Murray, 2017;
Huppert, 2017 & 2014; Ralph, Palmer, & Olney, 2012; Bradshaw, Hoelscher, & Richardson,
... better understanding, better instruments, and better interpretation are needed in the measurement of wellbeing.
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 11
2007; Thomas, 2009; and others). While Diener and others see promise in many approaches
(Diener et al., 1999), he makes it clear that better understanding, better instruments, and
better interpretation are needed in the measurement of wellbeing.
To be clear, however, the scholars cited above who raise these cautions are often
deeply invested in finding good measures and using them. So, for the purposes of
understanding the implications for the work of teachers and other educators, this paper’s
engagement with these scholars does not share the final goal of finding suitable in-
school measurement. Rather, these works are highlighted simply to suggest that such
measurement is likely impossible to do well at this time. For now—given the state of the
field of measurement and given the resources available in schools—accurate and reliable
measurement and interpretation of individual student wellbeing is not feasible. Even if
we were to overcome these challenges with better instruments and increased resources,
training, and support, it would still be impossible to measure individual wellbeing
exclusively in relation to school and its effect on children. Recognizing that various
situational factors impact wellbeing, a single ministry-level strategy is likely insufficient for
tackling these issues. Ott, Hibbert, Rodger, & Leschied, (2017) suggest a comprehensive
approach that is both intraprovincial (across multiple ministries) and interprovincial (a
national strategy) may be needed in place of local education governance. In the case
of next steps in Ontario schools, even seemingly pragmatic questions including what
measurement is possible, given time, training, capacity, etc.; what measurement is useful;
and what measurement is affordable are political and should be approached carefully.
None of these hurdles should hinder the promotion of wellbeing. However, we must
avoid embracing wellbeing strategies based primarily on their measurability. With the
... we must avoid embracing
wellbeing strategies based primarily
on their measurability.
‘tail wagging the dog,’ there may be a temptation to value a strategy not for its efficacy
in promoting wellbeing, but for its ability to produce simple results that can be easily
disseminated (Ott et al., 2017; Jones, Goldner, Butler, & McEwan, 2015). While this may be
a seductive arrangement within a public accountability discourse, such an approach may
not be the best for serving students. That which works best may not be easily measurable
and may never be politically attractive. Rather, better measures may be far wider, messier,
and complicated than anything proposed to date. They may need to look beyond just
12 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
the wellbeing of students and include the wellbeing of teachers and other educators,
socio-economic factors, and a myriad of other considerations. Indeed, current climate and
environmental surveys in use in many Ontario schools may offer useful data that could
inform support wellbeing initiatives for all school community stakeholders.
Place of wellbeing in schoolsThe interdependence of student, staff and school wellbeing
Recognizing that wellbeing, as well as its successful promotion, is situated across and
impacted by various domains and by questions of social location and equity, it may be
impossible to think about student and staff wellness and/or wellbeing as separate from
school wellbeing as a whole. Central to this concern are teachers, whose wellbeing is
linked to factors associated with the wellbeing of their students (Milatz, Lüftenegger, &
Schober, 2015; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt & Oort, 2011; Schuengel, 2012; Baker, 2006; Davis,
2003; and others). In their comprehensive review of school-based mental health initiatives,
Ott et al. argue for a holistic approach to wellbeing which includes multiple stakeholders
within a given school community, including teachers. They suggest that “schools cannot
be settings that promote mental fitness for students if they are not psychologically healthy
settings for educators” (Ott et al., 2017, p. 13). This has powerful implications for both
... when trying to understand or measure wellbeing in a school context, teachers should be considered along with students.
the promotion and the measurement of wellbeing, suggesting that not only should we
consider teacher wellbeing as linked to, if not mutually dependent on, student wellbeing,
but that, when trying to understand or measure wellbeing in a school context, teachers
should be considered along with students.
While it is tempting to suggest the wellbeing of students should necessarily and always
precede that of teachers and other educators, it may be irresponsible—if not ineffective—
to ignore the ways in which wellbeing is fundamentally relational, as well as the ways that
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 13
service to one group is dependent upon service to the other. The following analogy may
be instructive: adults are advised to put on their oxygen masks before helping children
with theirs during an airplane emergency. Likewise, teachers can only support students if
they first have access to the wellness resources they need. Schools are shared spaces, used
for work, learning, and play by children and adults. If teacher wellbeing as an end in itself
or if its conflation with student wellbeing seems overly teacher-focused, we can consider
the legal-, health-, and productivity-related benefits of promoting worker wellbeing in the
workplace (Kunyk, Craig-Broadwith, Morris, Diaz, Reisdorfer, & Wang, 2015; Lamontagne et
al., 2014; Standards Council of Canada, 2013). Insofar as healthy workers are better workers,
if we understand teachers’ work to include the promotion of student wellbeing (to say
nothing of becoming measurers of wellbeing), then school-wide strategies are a logical
approach to promoting student wellbeing.
Although typically untrained to do so, many teachers and educators work daily to promote
the wellbeing of their students. Interestingly, the interconnected vines of teacher and
student wellbeing grow more tightly together when the source of teacher stress is a feeling
of being unable to adequately support the wellbeing of their students, a phenomenon
which research suggests is increasingly common (Marko, 2015; Rodger et al., 2014; Froese-
Germain & Riel, 2012. Other scholars point to the “compassion fatigue” (Ott et al., 2017, p.
... many teachers and educators
work daily to promote the wellbeing
of their students.
10) experienced by teachers who can become emotionally exhausted and less effective
when they feel unable to meet the challenges and/or demands of student wellbeing
(Koenig, Rodger, & Specht, 2017; Arens & Morin, 2016; Fernet, Guay, Senécal, & Austin,
2012; Hoffman, Palladino, & Barnett, 2007).
Doris Santoro’s work may broaden our understanding of teacher stress around supporting
students. She draws an important distinction between demoralization and burn out,
arguing that
burnout may be an appropriate diagnosis in some cases where individual teachers’
personal resources cannot meet the challenge of the difficulties presented by the work.
However, the “burnout” explanation fails to account for situations where the conditions
of teaching change so dramatically that the moral rewards, previously available in ever-
14 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
... we must take a relational
approach to promoting and
measuring wellbeing ....
challenging work, are now inaccessible. In this case, the phenomenon is better termed
“demoralization.” (Santoro, 2011; p. 3)
Recognizing that teachers have a harder time the further they are from serving students
and from accessing the moral rewards of their work, we must take a relational approach
to promoting and measuring wellbeing which understands that teachers and students
co-experience and co-create the conditions for their mutual wellbeing. Despite the
significant place it occupies in education policy, the role of teachers in the promotion and
measurement of wellbeing is unclear; characterized by a murkiness which underserves
students and which can take away from teachers’ abilities to use their professional
judgement in order to serve their students. In addition to considering the nature and
place of the measurement of wellbeing in schools, the next section dives deeper into the
challenges associated with teachers’ work and the current push to promote and measure
student wellbeing.
Teachers as clinicians
Despite often having little or no clinical training, teachers are increasingly being
asked or routinely expected to act as front-line clinicians in service of the wellbeing of
children—a phenomenon best understood not as an unintended bi-product of under-
resourced policies, but as the specific and intended aim of education policy in Canada
and internationally (Ott et al., 2017; Morrison & Kirby, 2010; Santor, Short, & Ferguson,
2009; Jourdan, Samdal, Diagne, & Carvalho, 2008; Koller & Bertell, 2006). Rodger et al.
argue teachers are “being asked to be the ‘caring adult’ on the front lines of student
mental health, while at the same time being told that legally and procedurally only mental
health professionals should be dealing with issues related to mental health” (Rodger et
al., 2014, p. 20). This is a powerful recipe for role confusion as well as for the underservice
of students. Further, much of this work operates outside of the legal and contractually
obligated scope of teachers’ work.
While teachers’ work may typically encompass pedagogy (professional development,
planning, delivery, revision, assessment, etc.) as well as interaction in the service of
pedagogy and learning such as classroom management or supporting students with
special needs; it also includes additional pieces which are not contractual obligations and
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 15
which are optional or extracurricular activities (although often expected by administration
and parents) including coaching, sponsoring activities, academic enrichment activities,
overnight trips, and countless other activities in service of students. Broadly conceived
as curricular and extracurricular, although these domains intersect and interlock, these
two categories of work encompass a great deal of what teachers do. In both domains,
teachers’ commitments and professional judgements are informed by a myriad of
personal inclinations, habits of mind, values, proclivities, policies, past personal and
professional experiences as well as by administrators, students, parents, other educators,
and other context-specific factors, influences, and pressures. These multiple domains
are also mutually informative, as illustrated in figure 1.1 below. Recognizing the complex
and multi-dimensional nature of teachers’ work, it is important to determine where and
how wellbeing promotion can and should take place. Despite significant policy interest,
promise, and commitment in Ontario, it is unclear where the promotion and measurement
of wellbeing will fall within the multiple and intersecting domains of teachers’ work.
Wellbeing as curriculum
Part of the challenge of determining the place of wellbeing promotion and measurement
stems from a persistent lack of clarity on what sort of artifact or object wellbeing is within
education. Is it taught in the same way as a curriculum object is taught? Is it a method?
A way of doing and being? Is it both a pedagogical and curricular concern? Are there
wellness ‘truths’ to be imparted? If so, how might approaches to wellbeing take up holistic
approaches to wellness including Indigenous knowledges and conceptions of sitting in
a good relationship with self, community, and the natural world? A closer look at each of
these questions necessarily precedes and silence on these questions necessarily precludes
any worthwhile measure of the wellbeing of students and teachers in schools.
We can briefly explore the curriculum versus pedagogy/method question. If conceived of
as curriculum, there are challenges of wellbeing as a subject which is taught by teachers
personal inclinations, habits of mind, values, proclivities, past personal and professional learning experiencesexpectations from administrators, students, parents, and other context-specific factors
teachers’ commitments
and professional judgements
Figure 1.1
extracurricular
work
curricularwork
16 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
... teachers cannot be teachers of
wellness in the same way they
may be teachers of mathematics or
social studies.
and learned by students. Should schools and teachers be charged with knowing what
wellbeing is? How to create it? How to maintain it? In students? In colleagues? In teachers
themselves, individually? The uniqueness of wellbeing stems in part from the notion that,
to date, it has fallen most often into a curricular space dominated by physical and health
education teachers or in some cases, family studies teachers under a general category
of health. With the implicit and explicit complexities of teaching about self, society, and
healthy relations, such teaching may be better expected from mental health professionals
than from in-service teachers.
While the notion that student self-awareness as well as awareness more generally of
wellbeing issues, indicators, and related appropriate behaviors (including responses,
actions, etc.) appear central to the wellbeing of students in K-12 schools, there is limited
formal recognition of the content of these learnings as being important curriculum.
Unlike the overall and specific expectations which guide teachers in the curricular
domains, ideas concerning social, cognitive, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing have
no distinct/discreet checklist within Ontario education policy. Concurrently understood
as knowledge, practice, habit, being, and doing, it is difficult to imagine wellbeing as
discrete curricular items. Similarly, teachers cannot be teachers of wellness in the same
way they may be teachers of mathematics or social studies. To be clear, many teachers do
incorporate techniques that may promote wellbeing, e.g., mindfulness practices, in service
of teaching curriculum expectations.
However, such practices are typically optional, dependent on additional teacher training
and interest and are sometimes the first activities to be cut when facing a time crunch.
Until such practices are included in provincial curriculum; supported by required teacher
training; guided primarily by a commitment to student wellbeing rather than academic
improvement; and/or supported by additional time in the classroom; practices supporting
wellbeing will be inconsistent and ad hoc.
If wellbeing is not a curriculum item (a what), then it may be a method item (a how). As
the roll-out of wellbeing initiatives proceeds, it is realistic to suggest that wellbeing will be
positioned by policymakers simultaneously as a way of doing what teachers and educators
already do, as a series of integrations of wellbeing techniques into current practice, and/
or as a set of specific practices which are stand-alone but not linked to particular curricular
areas. An instructive example is the 2005 introduction of a daily physical activity (DPA)
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 17
requirement for students in elementary schools in Ontario. Each student was to have at
least 20 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. While clearly in service
to a laudable goal, it is unclear where this artifact was to ultimately and realistically live. It
was an add-on to the teacher day, with no space made for its inclusion. When something
is supposed to be everywhere, it may, in fact, appear nowhere. In a large-scale 2016 study,
only half of teachers reported implementing DPA, with 61.4% of principals reporting
implementation (Allison, et al., p. 6). Although implementation rates are irreducible to a
specific factor, the significance of time can scarcely be underestimated here.
With teachers reporting policy itself as a source of stress (Ott et al., 2017, p. 5), teachers
not only need the right tools, but the time and space in which to effectively use them.
Additions to teachers’ work, regardless of how well-designed, usually mean more work.
If the learning day is to remain the same length, adding a new piece means removing
something else or at least a portion thereof. Even the very best policy directives often
increase the number of curriculum items, activities, and approaches for which teachers
are responsible in a given period, lesson, unit, and year. There is rarely a commensurate
reduction in other expectations. Quite apart from the workplace justice issues this raises in
terms of work intensification, it is simply unrealistic to continually increase what needs to
be done, without a concomitant contraction of other duties or a significant change to the
structure of the workday.
Where then will the promotion of wellbeing live in schools and in the work of teachers
and other educators? Parallel to our current physical and health education classes, will we
have wellbeing teachers, classes, and periods? Will we soon see a resilience grade and/or
learning skill for each student on his/her provincial report card? Perhaps teachers will be
assessed similarly. Will wellbeing be a watery add-on that is everyone’s responsibility but
no one’s job? Will teachers be asked to act as clinicians, supporting students, cum patients,
through activities typically reserved for different kinds of specialists? Might we see new
Additions to teachers’ work, regardless of how well-designed, usually mean more work.
18 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
legal considerations as we move from en loco parentis to en loco parentis et medicus? Will
our teachers be forced to navigate perpetually cloudy but demanding policy expectations
within the existing parameters of their work time and space? How will questions of
equity be addressed? How might commitments to wellbeing honour concomitant
promises to recognize, engage, and honour Indigenous ontologies and health? While
perhaps dramatic, these questions must be considered, not only ahead of any wellbeing
measurement, but also ahead of any real sustainable implementation and promotion.
The role of teachers’ professional judgement
Even with clear answers to the questions above, one key concern remains with powerful
implications for teachers’ work and indeed teachers’ wellbeing. What is the role of teachers’
professional judgement in the promotion and measurement of wellbeing? Amid increased
provincial standardization of curriculum, reporting, and assessment in Ontario, teachers’
voices, experiences, expertise, and professional knowledges are, at times, excluded from
major policy decisions. Teachers must be central players in education policy generally and
within accountability-driven measures in particular. This is a central tenet of professional
self-regulation which needs greater attention from Ontario’s teachers and professional
education bodies, including the Ministry of Education. There is support among teachers
for accountability, but not by virtue of standardized measures or top-down policy (Kempf,
2016). Rather, teachers must have a greater presence at policy tables, as well as in decisions
about effective implementation and measurement.
Teachers often have unique knowledge about their students (Ott et al., 2017; Climie, 2015;
Tolan & Dodge, 2005) which should not be excluded from policy understandings and
articulations of wellbeing and its promotion. Ott et al. argue that
there is another kind of knowledge, not just about mental health but with
those on a continuum of mental health, the knowledge of the caregiver.
Educators as caregivers, not just pedagogues, have vital knowledge about the
needs of the students in their care. (2017, p. 9, italics in original)
Research suggests teachers’ professional knowledge and judgement may be increasingly
marginalized within and by education’s larger trend toward a concentration of decision
making at the board and ministerial levels (Ott et al., 2017; Hibbert, 2015; Grimmett &
Chinnery, 2009; Rose, 1999). The downplaying of teacher voice, experience, and expertise
may substantively weaken our ability to promote and measure wellbeing in schools.
Recognizing the firm links between student and teacher wellbeing, and further, that
teachers face stress when they cannot serve their students to the best of their ability,
sometimes with policy getting in the way, the inclusion of teachers and educational
support workers in the wellbeing conversation is a natural place for next steps in the policy
process to promote wellbeing.
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 19
Considerations going forwardThis final section offers some brief and specific considerations, in an attempt to
pull together the major themes of the review, before offering final comments
in conclusion.
Policy should work from and reflect an explicit commitment to promote wellbeing as an
end in itself, distinct from all related academic consequences, be they negative or positive.
This means easy measurability must not alone lead to the adoption of any given approach
or strategy. The strategies we need may be complex, long-term, expensive, and dependent
upon the classroom work of trained clinicians.
The current policy and research emphases on the promotion and measurement
of wellbeing should be broadened to consider whole school health and wellbeing
which includes the wellbeing of teachers and other educators, other support staff,
and administrators.
The complicated nature of wellbeing, as well as the measurement of wellbeing, should
be further considered with special consideration of the context of schooling. Of specific
concern are
• the difficulties in determining the effects of schools on students as distinct from other
factors in students’ lives, including personality, home and peer effects, and socio-
cultural or equity-related issues;
• the possible ways that a variety of frameworks, e.g., Indigenous approaches, might
inform the work; and
• the limitations of extant instruments for measuring individual student wellbeing,
which are not up to the job given the current resources available in and
to schools.
Teachers cannot be expected to do the work of trained clinicians and other health practitioners and professionals.
20 | A review prepared for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation
Teachers’ professional judgement must be central to the promotion of wellbeing. For
example, any major decisions to change province-wide assessment should be arrived at
through an extensive consultative process and partnership among ministry, federations
and teacher unions, school boards, teachers, and other educational stakeholders.
Based on consultation with a variety of stakeholders, the place of the promotion of
wellbeing, as well as any subsequent measurement thereof, needs to be clearly identified
within the current domains of the work of schools and within the formal curriculum
and/or policy framework. If we consider school attention to emotional safety in contrast
to the ways schools monitor and regulate physical safety, the neglect of the former is
glaring. If left as a ubiquitous responsibility, wellbeing will be neither effectively nor
sufficiently promoted.
Teachers cannot be expected to do the work of trained clinicians and other health
practitioners and professionals. Requiring them to do so, explicitly or implicitly, can
be harmful to both student and teacher wellbeing. Further, it may lead to teachers
becoming ultimately responsible for success or failure on measures of wellbeing that
are, in many cases, beyond their control and/or purview. As teachers’ work grows more
complicated, intense, and multifaceted, teacher responsibility for their students’ and
their own wellbeing must be commensurate with teacher training, teacher support, and
teacher resources.
Any future measures must reflect an appreciation for the concerns raised above. To
date, the Ministry has been unclear on whether it intends to seek snapshots in or over
time, a system view, and/or individual assessment/diagnosis of students. Does it aim to
take the temperature of the province, districts, schools, classes, students, and/or other
groups? Each answer requires different tools and different use of tools. We are nowhere
close to individual measures, but we may be able to look for trends in wellness across
and within populations, as well as track system-wide and school indicators, conditions,
and approaches that correlate with increases in wellness within these populations.
Close consideration of environmental factors and other social indicators may provide
crucial corollary data, alongside existing school climate data. Schools should neither be
solely credited nor blamed for changes to the levels of wellbeing in schools—no matter
how they are measured; however, schools and related policy decisions cannot shirk
responsibility for working with the best approaches available as their resources allow. All
this suggests that a tidy wellbeing destination may be elusive.
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 21
Conclusion
In closing, it may be important to raise one further comment, which falls beyond the
scope of this work, but which may be germane to further education policy discussion. In
the years ahead, we may see a blurring of content and method, of science and character
education, of technology and teaching, and countless other new approaches which
disrupt the way things are currently done. In terms of wellbeing specifically, we may learn
how to successfully teach and learn aspects such as resilience and introduce informative
and character-building practices of healthy failure—with kids embracing their own ability
to fail forward. However, as a public service, school wellbeing strategies will need to reflect
and be guided by an attention to equity. Just as we look for patterns of academic success
or failure along the lines of race, gender, sexuality, income, language, ability, religion, and
immigration, so too should we pay close attention to who is being asked to be resilient;
for whom successful supports for wellbeing are being provided; and as well, the degree
to which students equitably access the teaching and learning of global competencies.
Which students need to learn to fail forward? What are the relevant social patterns and
how might structural, environmental, and socio-cultural factors be relevant to student
wellbeing? A blanket call for resilience for example or wellbeing generally, which ignores
these pieces, risks heaping massive and inequitable responsibilities upon the hearts and
minds of certain students and their teachers. Wellbeing, should it become truly valued
and promoted in education, will necessarily rise and fall on a variety of factors in and
out schools.
THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING WELLBEING IN SCHOOLS | 23
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