This book provides a view of well-being in schools from a range of theoretical and practical perspectives. Contributors from academic, field-based and community roles in education offer insights from their research and practice to describe what it means for teachers, administrators and students to flourish in schools.

This book provides perspectives and insights across the educational system for how we might move toward living out this wish in all schools. The chapters provide perspectives on fundamental questions that have been guiding recent research on wellbeing in schools: How do school communities flourish together? How does supporting educator wellbeing connect to teaching, learning, leading in schools? What characteristics, qualities and strategies support the wellbeing of the whole school community? This book is unique in that it answers these questions from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators in K-12 schools, as well as from university and the wider community. Importantly, these chapters provide a repertoire of varied answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How can we leverage what works well to grow more, to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute? These chapters serve as examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts ways they can grow wellbeing through a focused attention on building appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and leading in all schools.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Ways Forward with Flourishing in Schools, Sabre Cherkowski and Keith Walker

Section I: Flourishing in Schools

Chapter 2: Care in Educational Leadership: Developing Capacities and Skills for Looking In and Looking Out, Sarah Shepherd

Chapter 3: Flourishing in all Seasons: Thriving in Discomfort and Uncertainty, Jennifer Watt

Chapter 4: What Would it Take to Bring Joy Back into the Lives of Teachers and Students?, Kathryn Hibbert, Susan Rodger, Peter Bates, Karen Hellerman, Mary Ott, and Maggie Rodger

Chapter 5: A Comprehensive Health Approach within Flourishing Schools, Stephen Berg, Brent Bradford, and Daniel B. Robinson

Chapter 6: The Impact of Positive School Climate on Student Wellbeing and Achievement, Benjamin Kutsyuruba, Don Klinger, and Alicia Hussain

Chapter 7: Learning is Our Moral Imperative: My Prairie Spirit Classroom, Lori Jeschke, Reagan Olson, and Bob Bayles

Section II: Students’ Flourishing in Schools

Chapter 8: Assessing Student Well-Being and Well-Becoming: Accounting for Student Voice, Thomas Falkenberg

Chapter 9: Critical Factors for Youth Thriving: The ARC Model, Benjamin Kutsyuruba, Jeffrey MacCormack, Nishad Khanna, Stoney McCart, and John Freeman

Chapter 10: The Dream: Community Service Learning for all Students, Roberta Campbell-Chudoba

Chapter 11: Co-Curricular Inquiry: Knowledge-Building for Well-Being, Margaret Macintyre-Latta with Julian Kaftan

Chapter 12: Growing Community One Play at a Time: How an Experimental Theatre Project led to Flourishing, Rebecca Stroud Stasel

Chapter 13: Physical Literacy and Flourishing (within) Canadian School Communities, Daniel B. Robinson, Elizabeth J. Durden-Myers, and Stephen Berg

Section III: Teachers’ Flourishing in Schools

Chapter 14: Four Research Learnings in Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Philosophy: An Essay about Helping Teachers and Students Flourish, Jim Parsons

Chapter 15: The Journey Toward a Sustainable, Site-specific Wellbeing Education Subject, Louise Sullivan

Chapter 16: Building a Well-Being Plan for Teachers, Lynn Hiscoe

Chapter 17: Supporting Rural Beginning Teacher Flourishing: A Mentorship Approach Tracy Dollansky, Lynn Lemisko, and Laurie-Ann Hellesten

Section IV: School Administrators’ Flourishing in Schools

Chapter 18: Ontario Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Well-Being and Coping Strategies in the Context of Work Intensification, Fei Wang, Katina Pollock and David Cameron Hauseman

Chapter 20: Flourishing through Self-Care—One School’s Case Study, Karine Veldhoevn

Chapter 21: Flourishing School Communities in Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, Ingrid Robinson and Denise Toney

Chapter 21: Growing the Potential of Flourishing Schools through Graduate Education Leadership Programs, Vicki Squires

Chapter 22: Purposeful Hiring Practices and Leadership Development: The Prairie Spirit Way, Bob Bayles, Roberta Campbell-Chudoba, and Noel Roche

Chapter 23: Development of the Leading with Heart Program, Amy Burns

Chapter 24: Stories from Three Flourishing Jamaican Primary Schools, Wilfred Beckford

Chapter 25: Flourishing in Vibrant Schools, Davis Clement, Megan Tschannen-Moran, and Ufuk Erdogan

Chapter 26: Epilogue: Concluding Remarks, Keith Walker and Sabre Cherkowski