Supporting Mental Health in Ontario Secondary Mathematics

Anxiety has been found to be at an all-time high across Canada and Ontario. “Math anxiety” appears on the surface to be a topic unrelated to mental health-focused understandings of anxiety, but has been studies for decades. Thus this qualitative study explored how Ontario secondary Mathematics teacher attend to student mental health in their classrooms. The findings from two semi-structured interviews with teachers from Toronto different school boards indicated that, when a student was “formally identified” with a mental health concern, accommodations recommended in their Individual Education Plan and suggested by their in-school mental health professionals were provided by the teacher. When delving deeper into what instructional practices they use for cultivating coping strategies and self-efficacy, it became apparent that in-school mental health professionals maintain responsibility for this and Ontario secondary teachers may be left to teach their curricular content. From this, implications, recommendations, and areas for future research are drawn