Mental Health and Well-Being

For the first time in almost 20 years, Ontario’s health curriculum has received a major overhaul. Although some parent and religious groups have mounted protests, Ontario’s new curriculum is a rounded program that looks at all aspects of health including sex, physical wellness, and mental health. Except for a couple of provinces and territories that are lagging behind, we are all on the same page.

This past year, in a small Midwest community, we lost a student to a drug overdose. We have lost many more to drug addiction, and although we haven’t attended their funerals, they are no longer the students we once knew, while some are unrecognizable.

Sometimes, adults assume children are too young to experience grief. But if you’re capable of feeling love, you’re capable of feeling loss.

Royce Li knows of students who hadn’t cracked an egg before entering his Grade 11 class. “It’s shocking,” he says from Rick Hansen Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario where he teaches in the hospitality department. Students are used to meals from fast-food restaurants where products are often filled with unnecessary fats, sugars, and salt.

Food allergy is a growing health concern in North America and for good reason. Too many kids are having allergic reactions and going into anaphylactic shock while at school.

Mental health disorders come in many shapes and sizes. While there is no one-size-fits-all method of addressing them, here are some strategies I have used in the classroom.

Mindfulness and yoga are becoming popular approaches in our classrooms for their principles that encourage kids to engage their minds, connect with their bodies, and breathe.

The quality and quantity of a teacher’s own sex education also play a role in the quality and quantity of sex education they provide. “There isn’t a lot of [sexual health education] training provided for teachers.”