School Name: North Peace Secondary School
School District: SD#60 Peace River North
Inquiry Team Members:Sam Stackhouse: sstackhouse@prn.bc.ca
Raquel Conley: rconley@prn.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: selson@prn.bc.ca
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE
Grade Levels: Secondary (8-12)
Curricular Area(s): Physical & Health Education
Focus Addressed: Aboriginal understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Community-based learning, Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Experiential learning, Growth mindset, Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies, Indigenous pedagogy, Inquiry-based learning, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation, Social and emotional learning
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our focus is to look at how self understanding, yoga, and wellness should be integrated into the classroom.
Scanning: We asked 81 students (at random) the 4 questions.
19 students could not name 2 adults that believed in them
18 students did not know their next steps
34 students used words like stressful, bad, not good, fine, and horrible to describe how they were doing
Focus: This area has been selected because it is an important part of the students wellbeing. It is one thing to push for graduation, but if students are not graduating in a healthy manner, what service is school doing for them? The focus is to bring all aspects of a person into their learning and to elicit a powerful understanding of what it means to be balanced (Medicine Wheel Teachings). This can be utilised via yoga and the self study that is a part of the practice.
Hunch: Our hunch is that many students do not do well in school because they feel unsupported and lack personal wellness. School is stressful and creates anxiety for many students.
New Professional Learning: Thus far, utilising the 4 questions and the spiral of inquiry (“The Spiral Playbook: Leading with an inquiring mindset in school systems and schools”) has been beneficial. As the beginning steps are just being endeavoured upon, there is a great amount of learning to come still.
Taking Action: Ask students, at random, to answer the 4 questions. This was done in conversational format. Consider answers and look for trends, differences, similarities, etc.
Checking: The 4 questions opened the door for conversations regarding what schools purpose is, what wellness looks like, what the purpose of education is, why at all matters, etc. This is only the beginning. The evidence provided by the 4 questions analysis was insightful but opens the door to a large amount of attention needing to be paid to students and their emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.
Reflections/Advice: What we have learned so far is that school is leaving many students stressed and anxious with an uncertainty of how to deal with these sensations, emotions, and feelings. It should be advised that when these conversations take place, students will sometimes be impacted by the reflection piece of these questions.