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Chapter 4 53 Positive Education 52 Chapter 4 53 Positive Education Martin Seligman Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Alejandro Adler University of Pennsylvania, Executive Secretary The committee that produced this report consisted of the authors and Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Knowledge and Human Development Authority of Dubai, Professor Kai Ping Peng, Tsinghua University, Sir Anthony Seldon, University of Buckingham, and Professor Lea Waters, The University of Melbourne. The members wrote drafts about PE in their regions of the world but were not responsible for the report as a whole. We are grateful to all of the following people who provided information about their projects: Hector Escamilla, Angela Duckworth, Donald Kamentz, Roger Weissberg, Justin Robinson, Mathew White, Yukun Zhao, Emily Larson, Jo Maher, Ye Hong, David Cooperrider, Steve Leventhal, and Tal Ben-Shahar. Schools are the primary place where the values “happiness.” Second, measures of unhappiness, of a culture get instilled in young people. To the typically depression and anxiety. Third, measures extent that teachers convey pessimism, distrust, of academic success. and a tragic outlook on life, their students’ world- There are a number of validated ways of view will be thus fabricated. To the extent that disaggregating measures of happiness or teachers transmit optimism, trust, and a hopeful well-being, both for adults and children. The sense of the future, this will positively influence most widely used one for adults is the satisfaction their students’ perception of the world. The with life scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, theme of this entire volume is that hope, trust, 1985), but this is not used often with school and happiness cause better well-being, and so children with one noteworthy exception: The the guiding hypothesis of Positive Education Organisation for Economic Cooperation and (“PE” hereafter) is that positive schools and 54 Development’s (OECD) 2015 Programme for positive teachers are the fulcrum for producing International Student Assessment (PISA) included 55 more well-being in a culture. life satisfaction measures in the core items of its This chapter reviews the state of PE across global exam, which the OECD conducts every the globe as of the end of 2017. Throughout three years in over 70 countries. Another way to the chapter we underscore the components of slice the happiness pie is between hedonic (felt what we consider the best practices: rigorous pleasure) and eudaimonic (purpose-oriented) ongoing evaluation, analyses of effect sizes and well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2001). PERMA (Seligman, intervention duration, cultural adaptation of 2011) is an acronym for Positive emotion, evidence-based interventions, treatment fidelity Engagement, Good relationships, Meaning, and measurements, and the promotion of teacher Accomplishment and is measured in children by empowerment and creativity to refine local EPOCH (Kern, Benson, Steinberg, & Steinberg, interventions. 2016) and in adults by the PERMA-Profiler (Butler & Kern, 2016) and by Comprehensive or Brief Here is the outline. First, we define “Positive Inventories of Thriving (Su, Tay, & Diener, 2014). Education” and so limit this chapter’s scope to programs and schools that teach validated PE Unhappiness is typically measured by depression interventions and measures. Second, we discuss inventories: the Children’s Depression Inventory in the interventions and measures most commonly children (Kovacs, 2004) and the Beck Depression used. Third, we survey the spread of PE across Inventory or Center for Epidemiologic Studies the world alongside evidence that PE increases Depression Scale in adults and analogous anxiety the traditional goals of schools (literacy numeracy, inventories for children and adults (Beck, Steer, & and science) as well as building well-being. Brown, 1996; Radloff, 1977). While lowering Finally, we discuss some serious cautions as well depression and anxiety is a goal of PE, it should as guidelines for the future. be noted that unhappiness in the sense of depression and anxiety does not exclude happiness (the correlation is much lower than -1.0 (Rezaee, What is Positive Education? Hedayati, Naghizadeh, Farjam, Sabet, & Paknahad, 2016)) but rather it merely hinders happiness. The goal of PE is to produce both well-being as Hence decreasing pathology is an important, well as to forward the traditional outcomes of albeit incomplete, goal of PE. schooling. This goal is too broad, however, since many programs and many schools have such a Academic success measures are typically goal. To make our review wieldy and useful, we national standardized exam scores or grade will limit the scope of PE to schools and programs point averages. that actually measure outcomes and also use a Interventions. We limit the scope of the replicable set of validated interventions to programs we review below to those that use achieve those outcomes. several of the following reasonably well-validated Measures. Three kinds of measures are important interventions (for meta-analyses of positive for evaluating PE. First, measures of “happiness,” interventions and their validation, see Sin & which must be decomposed into elements Lyubomirsky, 2009 and Boller, Haverman, less vague than the highly ambiguous term, Westerhof et al, 2013): Global Happiness Policy Report 2018 • What Went Well (Seligman, Rashid, & Parks, the Bhutanese Ministry of Education’s explicit 2006). In this intervention students record mission is to “Educate for Gross National typically three events that went well today Happiness.” The Bhutanese Ministry of Education and why they went well. collaborated with the Positive Psychology Center • Gratitude Visit (Emmons, 2007). Students at the University of Pennsylvania to co-develop a write a letter of gratitude and read it to the GNH Curriculum that targets ten positive “life source. skills,” including many in the list above, for • Active, Constructive Responding (Gable, Reis, secondary school students (grades 7 through 12). Impett, & Asher, 2004). Students learn to The curriculum taught these skills in a 15-month respond constructively to another person’s stand-alone course and imbedded them in victories. existing academic subjects. • Character Strengths (Peterson & Seligman, All principals and teachers from 11 treatment 2004). The students identify and use good schools received training during a 10-day GNH character and their signature strengths in a Curriculum training retreat. The trainers were new way. psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania • Best Self (Roberts, Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy, and nine trained staff members from Bhutan’s & Quinn, 2005). Students write about their Ministry of Education; a training manual (Educating best selves and proudest moments. for GNH) was used. The trainers taught principals • Meditation and Mindfulness (Davidson et al., and teachers how to practice and how to teach the 2003). Students practice one or more of the ten life skills. Teachers were also trained to infuse various mediation and mindfulness techniques. their academic subjects (e.g., math, science, • Empathy training (Bryant, 1982). Students reading) with the ten life skills. Literature, for learn about and use empathy techniques. instance, was taught through a “GNH lens” by • Coping with emotions (Deci & Ryan, 2010): identifying strengths and virtues in characters from Students identify, understand, and manage novels and by encouraging students to use these their emotions, particularly positive emotions. strengths in their daily lives. Further, all students in • Decision-making (Albert & Steinberg, 2011). the intervention group participated in botany Students learn to choose the best action practices in organic gardens in every one of the 11 plans from available options. school campuses. They learned to plant, grow, and • Problem-solving (Steinberg, 2014). Students harvest vegetables and other foods. By studying use effective heuristics to solve theoretical the plants’ physiology, genetics, ecology, classifica- and practical problems. tion, structure, and economic importance, students • Critical thinking (Marin & Halpern, 2011). learned how to interactively apply what they were Students conceptualize, synthesize, apply, learning in their biology, chemistry, physics, and and evaluate information as a guide to beliefs mathematics classes to their botanic practices. and actions. Furthermore, through the complex process of growing different plants with their fellow students and understanding the role of food in the larger Positive Education across the Globe local and national economic system, they learned to practice critical thinking, creative thinking, Asia decision making, and problem-solving skills. Bhutan. We begin with Bhutan because the first In the classroom, teachers learned how to give solid evidence that PE simultaneously increases students verbal and written feedback in a way well-being and national standardized exam that empowered and motivated them to enhance performance emerged there (Adler, 2016). the quality of their work. Teachers learned the Bhutan is a small Himalayan country with fewer importance of identifying and noting what than one million inhabitants, and it uses Gross students were doing right in their classwork, National Happiness (GNH) rather than Gross instead of only highlighting what they were Domestic Product (GDP) to assess national doing wrong, which is typical of pedagogical progress and
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