- Student mental health, well-being, and happiness have been the focus of research in the last decade or so. A lot is said about positive education. What does positive education promote?
It is true that Positive education has always been in the center of interest of many positive psychologists whose research and interventions in schools have provided us with reliable feedback in the last decade.
So why all this talk about positive education? Because it contributes not only to learners’ academic success but also to their success in life.
Positive education is defined as education for both traditional skills and for happiness. The high prevalence worldwide of depression among young people, the small rise in life satisfaction, and the synergy between learning and positive emotion all argue that the skills for happiness should be taught in school.
There is substantial evidence from well controlled studies that skills that increase resilience, positive emotion, engagement and meaning can be taught to schoolchildren
Positive education primarily focuses on promoting learners’ wellbeing and happiness for the present and optimism about their future experiences. Resilience and emotion regulation are also of primary importance. Establishing a positive educational environment and also catering for educators’ wellbeing and happiness should not be underestimated either.
- What are the core character strengths? What is their role in education?
According to Peterson and Seligman (2004) there are 24 strengths and six core character strengths which are: Wisdom and Knowledge, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance and Transcendence.
The discussion of character strengths and their development is highly relevant to the main challenges of educational organizations.
Educators can help children identify and cultivate their own ones. Encouraging students to draw on their character strengths in their everyday lives can help to promote academic achievement, happiness, a sense of self-efficacy, gratitude, and improved school climate. Educators are in an ideal position to promote positive psychology within the schools not only for students but other fellow teachers and administrators.
There is relevance of character strengths to twenty-first-century schools and students’ cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies.
Character strengths are the foundation of optimal life-long development and thriving. Good character is not a singular thing but rather a plural one.
- Can we teach students how to make themselves happy?
Definitely we can. The first and the most important part is to make our students realize that happiness is inside them and then help them discover it. We can teach them to be kind to themselves and to people around them. To recognize their blessings and express their gratitude for them. To find their character strengths and how they can rely on them in stressful moments. To show them how they can be mindful, how to accept all their emotions and how to regulate them. You can find tasks to work with your students in the resource book “Teaching happiness in the language classroom” by Express Publishing”.
- Is CLIL, STEAM etc. a method or a trend?
They are “trendy methods”. Quite a lot of language teachers have been using CLIL and STEAM to teach lexis and grammar, for many years. The fact that they have evolved into solid approaches and the light shed on them by social media have increased their popularity. What is important for me is that they can help us enrich our teaching, engage students and thus achieve our academic goals.
- How has Covid-19 changed you as a person and a teacher?
It made me unleash my full potential. Being a sociable person, I consciously tried to find ways to make up for the physical distance. I came up with various ideas of how we can be in touch and support each other and sustain a sense of belonging, and sharing within a community. Although physically apart from friends and loved ones I somehow felt closer at heart with them.
As a person, during Covid, I became more health conscious and needless to say I improved my digital skills. Now, in the post Covid period, I feel even more grateful for all my blessings and everything I can enjoy, taking nothing for granted.
As a teacher I found my new purpose in life and became even more passionate about helping my learners with mental health, happiness and resilience preparing them for unpredictable future changes they will be asked to encounter
- What is the main point you’d like readers to go away with?
During Covid and post Covid period a new teacher role has emerged. That of a teaching happiness educator. It is not just another hat on our head, it is a mission. It is not only about helping our learners succeed academically, but also about helping our students thrive. It is about promoting their mental health and sustainability; it is about the mark we want to leave behind us as educators. We should not be afraid to embrace it and implement happiness lessons in our classes.
