Guhn – school response to MDI results

The main response we have seen from schools is that they start having conversations on these topics. I think traditionally schools have been asked to primarily focus on academic content, on providing knowledge information to the children and hope that they will learn and be prepared that way for what comes after school. And of course now with longer school days and changing society, the whole role of well-being within the school context has gotten a bigger role and it’s gotten a bigger importance. And traditionally teachers have not been prepared to deal with those topics. So the fact that we now have a survey that systematically tries to understand how children are doing, how their social contexts relate to their well-being now opens the door for asking questions, for having discussions and looking at some of the things that are or are not in place. I’ll give you one example. In one of the Vancouver schools, one of the teachers noticed that a lot of the students said they don’t feel well connected or well supported by adults in the different contexts, whether it’s at home or in the neighbourhood or in the school. Whereas in some other schools or neighbourhoods around that school, they saw that that was indeed the case so they thought why is there such a stark discrepancy between adjacent schools or neighbourhoods. And so these teachers would go to other schools and have a conversation, “What are you doing to support your students?” The fact that the MDI opens the door for having these discussions in a well-informed manner and then ideally motivates people to find solutions in a collective way, that’s one of the biggest developments we have seen.