November 10, 2025
The education system fails to acknowledge the environment they have allowed to develop.
Mom Is Very Involved: A lesson on
youth resiliency.
Teachers are essential.
They are as important as emergency services and healthcare professionals.
No other professional has the same access to and influence over our children during their most crucial developmental years.
Given their significant impact, both positive and negative, they must be regulated to the same extent as other essential services.
They should be held to the highest standards.
Governments, school boards, educational institutions, regulatory colleges, and many educators themselves have forgotten that without healthy youth, we cannot achieve healthy communities.
Our youth should not have to survive our public schools.
A Canadian expert on youth resilience.
Dr. Michael Ungar is a therapist, researcher, and professor at Dalhousie University.
I first discovered his work while pursuing my Master of Social Work (MSW) degree.
I have had the privilege of attending two talks on resilience given by Dr. Ungar. Both presentations took place in my local community: one was organized by the school board, while the other was facilitated through local partnerships aimed at improving youth mental health.
I wish more members of the school board had attended the conferences they helped to organize.
Key insights from Dr. Ungar’s research.
“In the context of exposure to significant adversity, resilience is both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources that sustain their well-being and their capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided and experienced in culturally meaningful ways.” (Ungar, 2008, p.225)
“While positive thinking and ‘grit’ might predict better psychological outcomes for the general population, we can help more children with complex needs faster when we change their environments first.” (Ungar, 2015, p.16)
“Despite a popular belief to the contrary, children’s level of motivation to achieve positive developmental milestones like high school graduation or to resist substance abuse is actually less important than the resources children are provided by their caregivers, educators, and policymakers.” (Ungar, 2011)
“Sometimes young people cope in ways that others perceive as harmful but that clients themselves argue are protective. Children adapt to their environments in ways that make sense to them, given the psychological and social resources available.” (Ungar, 2004)
“Problem behaviours in poorly resourced environments can simply be an individual’s best ‘choice’ (though there really is very little choice!) to make do with what little she has.” (Ungar, 2015, p.41)
“An interesting example is the tendency of youth who perform poorly at school to leave before graduation. The strategy may appear to disadvantage them except that by their own account leaving a situation where they feel their self-esteem is threatened, and where opportunities for a good job in the future are perceived as few and far between even if they have a high school certificate, may be a protective strategy relevant in a particular socio-historical context (Dei et al., 1997).” (Ungar, 2015, p. 41)
“The map we are using to chart young people’s problems and their solutions is wrong. We’ve started with a map that is for individual change processes even though children who face significant risks need their environments changed before individual changes will be sustained.” (Ungar, 2015, p. 162)
Real examples of how our educational environments are harming our youth.
Remember the grade 9 English teacher? Well, here she is again, in grade 10, trying to undermine my daughter’s success. If this issue had been addressed in grade 9, perhaps she wouldn’t feel so emboldened to attempt it again in grade 10.
Before the quadmester began, the English teacher wrote the principal, “I have noticed that she is in my 2D English class next quad. I have some reservations with this one. One – she barely passed 1D with me and should be in an applied class, and 2, I had a great deal of issues with her in the class. My experience with her is that she is very disruptive and refuses to do work. Is there a plan moving forward with her? Can she work in the PLC or student success? I am extremely not comfortable with her in my class, given our experience last year.”
After not receiving a response from the principal, she reached out again, “I am messaging again about this issue as it is really bothering me and creating a lot of anxiety. I have taught her before, and I know exactly what to expect. I know that last time I taught her, there was going to be a plan in place moving forward for how to deal with her behaviour in class and constant phone use. I could send her to the office daily, but there has to be a better way. Can she work in the PLC with student success? I don’t want her to disrupt a grade 10 academic English Class. Please let me know what you think.”
Here is another example from a different teacher, “Good morning, I have spoken to (the principal) twice about what’s been going on…(you were busy or not in office). She has been sent to the office on 3 of the last 4 days. I had that civics class in the first quad, and not a single kid was sent to the office. Can you please read her Edsby observations and hold her accountable for her actions in the classroom?”
Unaware of this email, I had already contacted the principal about this teacher. I was horrified by his actions when I learned that he had pretended to lose my daughter’s phone after she had entrusted it to him. This was part of a new strategy we were trying to implement to help her break her dependence on her phone. Instead of doing everything possible to ensure its success, he did everything to make sure it didn’t. Following this incident, she found it challenging to trust teachers with her phone, granting that privilege only to a select few.
This was a lost opportunity. If successful, it may have been the start of a repair.
Remember, “Problem behaviours in poorly resourced environments can simply be an individual’s best ‘choice’ (though there really is very little choice!) to make do with what little she has.” (Ungar, 2015, p.41)
Young people cannot choose their educational environments or the adults working within them. Therefore, our government, unions, and regulatory bodies must ensure that abusive, discriminatory, stigmatizing, and ignorant individuals do not enter any school.
Children who have suffered harm grow into adults impacted by it.
Let’s establish a system that selects and supports professionals who enhance youth resilience rather than undermine it.
Your ADHD advocate,
Lynn