Discussing mental health benefits for teachers participating in outdoor education in Canada: a conceptual analysis and future research directions

ABSTRACT

Outdoor education (OE) offers significant learning opportunities for students, yet teacher benefits remain underexplored. Teacher stress is causing compassion fatigue, burnout, and attrition, negatively impacting student outcomes. OE settings naturally provide educational, mental wellness, and self-care opportunities for teachers. Our research team, through a Communities of Practice focus group, identified several benefits for teachers engaging in OE. These benefits include enhanced emotional balance, sense of purpose, mental toughness, and physical endurance. Additionally, teacher competency can improve through increased knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. OE can serve as a vital part of a teacher’s self-care routine, being accessible and offering personal and professional benefits. We recommend further research on teacher experiences in OE to understand the benefits and barriers.

KEYWORDS:

• Outdoor education
• teacher education
• wellness
• self-care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Conor Barker

Dr. Conor Barker, Ph.D., R. Psych. is a teacher, psychologist, and scholar of school psychology and inclusive education. Dr. Barker has over 15 years of experience in inclusive education as an educational assistant, classroom teacher, special programs teacher, and school psychologist. His research area focuses on inclusive practices in rural school contexts, knowledge translation of psychology to improve equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, and the development of clinical competency and creative practice within school psychology.

Nicole Chisholm

Nicole Chisholm, M.Ed., is a school counselor, working in both secondary and elementary schools. Ms. Chisholm has practiced as an elementary school teacher in Alberta and Nova Scotia. Ms. Chisholm is actively engaged in a variety of different outdoor learning opportunities with her students and currently is an instructor in Certificate of Outdoor Education program at Saint Francis Xavier University.

Andrew Foran

Dr. Andrew Foran, Ph.D. is a full professor at St. Francis Xavier University, and an establish scholar in outdoor education (OE). Dr. Foran has been an OE instructor for 32 years, and has experience running youth programs in OE in urban and rural school districts. Dr. Foran coordinates the certificate in outdoor education program for in-service teachers and leads OE for at the Bachelor of Education preservice teachers.