8 Positive Education Insights: World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

It's been almost a week since I've returned from the World Congress on Positive Psychology (WCPP) held in Melbourne. I was there in my capacity as the Founder of Happiness Scientists - to present on Positive Education in Singapore, and also to learn from the world's best experts on the latest trends. This article follows my previous article on "7 top insights about happiness" and is entirely focused on Positive Education - positive psychology applied to the educational context.

What is Positive Education?

As can be seen in the diagram (left), Positive Education has the goal of helping students build their capacity to do well & learn in school (Academics) AS WELL AS become good people and flourish (Character & Well-Being). This means that students can learn in an environment that is uplifting and focuses on their well-being, while still helping them to learn and engage with the world. All of this would be made easier when the whole community (Positive Ecosystem) works together. More information about positive education can be found on the International Positive Education Network (IPEN) Website.

8 insights on Positive Education

At this WCPP 2019, there were many ideas, practices and current research shared to advance the field. Having worked with more than 100 schools across Singapore, I was curious to understand what other countries are doing and how it relevant to us in our own practice. Here are my 8 insights, which I hope can be useful to Principals, Educators & Practitioners in the field of Education:

1. NEED TO STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS. Marty Seligman opened the conference asking a very important question: "Why is depression & anxiety higher than it has always been, especially for young people?" The world, he said, is getting more materially prosperous but psychologically poor. He had a few theories for why this is happening (i.e. negativity bias, fast-paced changing world etc) but to his view, it boiled down to relationships. Relationships (such as parent-child or even husband-wife, extended-families) that once used to be close and a bedrock of our ability to feel secure and loved, have weakened in the wake of social, political and environmental changes. As I work with schools, I do note more families with both parents working, extended families that once used to function like a kampung (village) now living away from each other. There is thus a need to help strengthen the relationships in children's lives.

• First, beginning in the home, empower parents with the necessary skills and tools to build closer connections with their children.
• Second, build positive teacher-student relationships (TSR) in the school so that students can have an external level of support.
• Third, help students build the capacity to build deeper relationships with their peers. This includes becoming more socially intelligent, mindful and open-minded.
• Fourth, strengthen the relationships with external agencies, organizations that support such families, e.g. after school care centres, mentors & role models, so they can become positive relationship role models in the students' lives.

2. EXTEND THE MORAL CIRCLE. A school is a community - there is thus a need to move from "I" to "We". Following from my last point, this means including all members that contribute towards the school, including the admin staff, cleaners, bus drivers and equipping students with the skills to be able to recognise their role in building them up. Extending beyond the schools, this includes animals, the environment, other people in the world. What this will need is an education that goes beyond simply teaching subjects, but teaching them about what it means to be human and live in this world. At the practical and implementation level, it means:

• Include in the curriculum discussions and education about morality, empathy & diversity. This will allow them to have the emotional skills to engage with people who are different from them, and also to consider the larger picture.
• Bring in the spiritual positive emotions e.g. gratitude, hope to help students to see their connection to the larger picture. This supports students to find deeper meaning and answers a question they have in their mind: Why do I need to go to school?

3. LOOK AFTER TEACHERS' WELL-BEING (TWB). Prof Faye McCallum from the University of Adelaide emphasised the importance of TWB. In fact, TWB is the single most important factor for happiness, student & teacher achievement. Teachers who have high well-being teach more effectively, are better able to build a strong relationship for their students, and as a result, students learn better. A recent report from the OECD found Singapore (secondary) teachers to be working an average of 46 hours a week compared to the average of 39 hours. With so much on their plate, it is a huge challenge for them to pro-actively take care of their own well-being, much less their students. What, then, will support TWB? Prof McCallum shared 3 findings from her research:

• Professional development focused on TWB. This means equipping teachers with the skills to be able to increase their personal and professional well-being. These strategies need to be authentic i.e. acknowledge their current challenges while still empowering them to take care of themselves.
• Increased Autonomy. When teachers are given the opportunity to exercise choice, and when they felt like they were trusted to make decisions (instead of micro-managing), they were happier.
• Make TWB a school priority. Schools (including leadership & management team) need to put TWB as part of their strategic thrusts and incorporated this focus in their programs, policies and strategies. This sent a message that teachers were valued and significant.

4. MEASURE THE IMPACT ON STUDENT WELL-BEING. If we want to know whether the programs we run are actually working, we need to measure its impact on the well-being of students. Dr Mathew White shared a case study of the impact of his work in St Peter's College (Adelaide) and found that:

• Students at-risk benefited most from Positive Education as a whole-school approach
• Well-being was strongly related to life satisfaction and physical activity and negatively correlated to ill-health.
• For boys, what mattered was the level of connectedness, belonging and engagement.

This impact could not have been determined if they had not thought about measurement to begin with. One way is through the OECD's How's Life Well-being framework, or using the EPOCH measure of Student Well-being that is specific to measuring well-being of adolescents. My take away is: Measurement will allow schools to have data specific to their own context; this data can then be used to inform shifts in culture, implementation of programmes and even affect policy changes on a wider-scale. Of course, it is important to determine what you want to measure and what you need to use the measurement for. We certainly do not want to measure for measuring's sake!

5. CONSIDER BOTH INDIVIDUAL & GROUP FLOURISHING. PhD Candidate Laura Allison shared how "well-being resides within us and between us" and thus we may need to consider not just doing positive interventions at the individual level e.g. gratitude journalling but also group interventions such as appreciative inquiry; also, to bear in mind group states such as collective resilience. She (along with Profs Lea Waters and Peggy Kern) define group flourishing as "As a collective, independently and interdependently feeling good and functioning well." It would help to see the classroom as s system and keep an eye on these pieces (Allison, Waters & Kern, 2019):

• Classroom cohesion (incl. emotional bonding, supportiveness, drawing boundaries)
• Classroom Flexibility (incl. leadership, discipline, negotiation)
• Classroom Communication (incl. listeners' skills, self-disclosure, clarity)
• Classroom Wellbeing (incl. strengths, emotional management, attention, relationships, coping & habits)

This was fascinating to me because one thing that schools tend to focus too much on is the strategies/tools that come with positive psychology. While they are great and well validated (e.g. 3 blessings, Kind Acts), simply pushing these out negates the fact that these need to be situated within the environment and context of the school. From my own experience working with schools, doing a gratitude exercise in one school could promote an entire culture shift; while in another could be an added stressor for students (i.e. do the gratitude journal and submit it for homework ??).

6. BUILD UPON THE FOUNDATION THAT'S PRESENT. On the panel, Dr Peggy Kern asked me what is one piece of advice I would give to schools starting with Positive Education or consultants working with schools, and it is this: Build upon what is already working in the school. This means really understanding what makes the school tick. I shared about a school I had worked with in 2011, who already had the foundation for Positive Education as the Principal firmly believed in it, walked the talk, and made sure teachers had enough time to rest during the holidays. They began by focusing on the relationships with their colleagues, and that helped the core team gain buy-in. Another school began with mindfulness because a large number of their students were Buddhist and when they had brought up this concept, it was well-received. Bo Cui (doctoral student) shared that what made a difference to teachers' professional wellbeing, especially in the rural areas, were the Confucian values of responsibility and harmony. When the school allowed them to tap on their values, they felt more connected to their job and were able to perform better. This would not likely have happened if the school were located in the city, where there is a lean towards Western values of volition & choice. Closely tied to this point is that context & culture matter deeply. In the implementation of Positive Education in schools, we must not override or disregard the existing culture in place; instead, we have to work with it and build upon it.

7. SOLVE A PROBLEM THAT THE SCHOOL IS FACING. Prof Incheol Choi, Director of the Centre for Happiness Studies at Seoul National University, shared that when he first introduced happiness education to schools, they weren't as enthusiastic as he had hoped. Deep down they had a fear: will happiness education undermine the eudaemonic values of self-control and meaning? This was a problem: without addressing their fear, how could happiness education take flight? To solve this, he set about conducting research on the impact of positive affect (emotions) and self control on (a) achievement & (b) relationships. He found that self-control had a stronger effect than positive affect on achievement, but that positive affect had a stronger effect than self-control when it came to building relationships. The conclusion: feeling emotionally good was thus important, but did not supersede the eudaemonic values that mattered to the South Korean teachers. In other words, happiness education did not mean they had to give up their values - in fact, it enhanced the building of relationships (between students). With research support, it was much easier for teachers to buy into the idea of happiness education as something worth doing.

8. ALLOW MORE TIME & SPACE FOR CREATIVITY. Marty Seligman shared that any one point in time, we humans are thinking (daydreaming) about the what's coming next. In other words, we are using our imagination to predict what is going to be in our future. This "future-mindedness" is needed to navigate the world that we are facing; however, what are we really doing to nurture this ability to be imaginative (a uniquely human quality) and creative? He went on to share about 5 different types of creativity (too long to include in this article) and how we could intentionally cultivate this strength. My takeaway from this is that, in schools, we need to provide more time and space for children to explore their creativity, tap into their imagination and use this information to adequately prepare them for the future. After all, when inventors and innovates come up with ideas, wasn't it in part because they wanted to create a better life for the next generation? We are handing down these innovations from one generation to the next, based on our prospection of what they will need in the future. Truly a revolutionary idea - and one that I hope schools in Singapore will heed.

In summary, beginning a journey in Positive Education is a noble one. It means you are bringing the science of positive psychology to the school with the hope that everyone in the community can flourish. This is important particularly in today's world where depression, anxiety and suicide rates (particularly for adolescents) is on the rise. In Singapore, a recent report shows a record high numbers of suicide particularly in adolescent boys. It's very saddening; however, with Positive Education, we can teach these children the skills to cope better & become more resilient. We can help build an exciting and positive future for the next generation. I hope these tips will prove helpful to you in your school's journey.

I would love to hear from you: What have you tried doing in your own schools? Which stage of the journey are you on at the moment? How can I be of help?

PS: I've shared more of my thoughts in a previous article: do check it out.

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