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Using Positive Psychology and Education to create a flourishing school environment.

Four Key Ideas from Moya O’Brien

1. Establish the right work environment

While there are only a few studies of positive schools there is a proliferation of research in the area of positive psychology and flourishing in the workplace. For example Lewis (2015) identified a number of factors that contribute to resilience and managing change in a work environment which are helpful. Positive work environments create hopefulness. They create dreams of positive future states –there is a vision. There is a focus on what can be achieved – small steps towards a goal. They create empowering positive narratives and generative images –the individuals in the organisation generate the stories of the past and the future. They redefine success and amplify success. They encourage savouring the positive and focus on the good stuff. They encourage active constructive responding – really listening to individuals (Lewis, 2015). These ideas can easily be applied to schools and implemented with both students and teachers to enhance the learning environment for students the school as a work environment for teachers.

2. Evaluate “flourish” and redefine success

The best people to measure success in schools are those who are experiencing school life every day– the staff and the students. Imagine a system where the opinions of the students were recruited and shaped the development of the school? Where students were asked if they enjoyed coming into school, if they felt they were learning, if the work was challenging enough and not too challenging, if they had friends, if they felt included, if they felt safe, if they could talk to someone on staff about a problem they have and suggestions they have for improvements to the school? This would create a sense of belonging, of being a valued member of the school community and that they come influence change. Our new measure of success might be improving the number of students who reported that they enjoyed coming to school.

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Similarly in this flourishing school, teachers might be asked the same. Do they enjoy coming into school? Do they feel they are developing professionally? Do they experience pleasure in their work? Do they have friends on staff? Do they feel included and safe to share ideas? Do they feel they could talk to another staff member about work and about a problem they have with a particular student or class? Do they feel that their opinion is valued and suggestions for improvements to the school are discussed and implemented?

Another measure of flourishing might be the amount of positive emotion that students and staff experience in the school. Is the school a happy place? Various organisations now recruit reports of how well they are doing from hitting a button as you exit the building to a long, detailed customer satisfaction questionnaire. Schools might think about measuring happiness the same way.

3. Think about Positive Emotion

From an evolutionary perspective we are wired to perceive and respond to danger in the environment. Negative emotions narrow our thoughts and actions to those that promote survival. If we are in a fearful state we cannot focus on learning. The purpose of negative emotions is to survive in a life-threatening situation. The evolutionary perspective positive emotion is not easy to explain. What is the purpose of joy, gratitude, hope, pride? What is the purpose of positive emotion and why is it helpful in our schools? The purpose of positive emotion is to broaden our mindset and thoughts and actions repertoire to facilitate creativity; it builds resources and helps undo harmful effects of negative emotion. The purpose of positive emotion is to broaden and build – broaden our mindset and build our thought action repertoire (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005).

Positive emotion makes us curious, interested and exploratory; it makes us more creative and better problem solvers and more sociable, seeking relationships and being collaborative. If we create positive emotion in our schools the students are more open to learning (Fredrickson, 1998, 2009).

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One way to create positive emotion is to become aware of our interactions in the school and try to work on increasing the ratio of positive to negative or neutral comments. Psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada (2005) worked out a mathematical formula for positivity ratio – they identified that flourishing individuals have a positivity ratio above 3 to 1. Flourishing marriages requires a ratio of 5 to 1 (Gottman, 1994) and a high performance business team usually have a positivity ratio of 6 to 1 (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). Even being aware of this ratio in the school can help us focus on building more positive interactions. Positive emotion increases creativity, and broader more open minded thinking (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).

4. Enjoy and savour the good stuff!

Most people are programmed to respond to the negative than the positive events in a day. In school we need to think about shifting the focus on to what is working. Taking time to focus on the positive. How do we respond to good news? Allowing time for individual students, groups of students and the school as a whole to share positive news and celebrate success is so important.

Thinking about positive emotion as an emotional reset button is also helpful (Fredrickson, 2003). Schools are influence by what happens in school and in the community. When something negative impacts the school community we can use this reset button. Looking back over photographs of good times – the last school outing, when the team won a game etc. can all help to shift negative emotion and build resilience.

Gable (2004) discuss the fact that celebrating good news is the foundation of stable relationship. It has also been associated with building intimacy and trust in the workplace (Lewis, 2015). We can work on this in the classroom and also at the whole school level.

5. In summary

Positive psychology reframes how we look at education and the goals for schools based on positive education – wellbeing and achievement. Flourishing schools are created when all the individuals in the school community are flourishing. Flourishing schools focus on wellbeing by living it, teaching it and embedding it into the everyday life of all members of the school.

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Flourishing schools have high hopes for all students and generate hope. They generate positive stories about the school and the people in the school. They redefine success not in academic terms but in personal goals of wellbeing and achievement develop a collaborative rather than a competitive atmosphere.

They celebrate the positive and use the tools of positive psychology such as positive emotion and active constructive responding to empower students and teachers. One of the measures of success of any school is that everyone wants to be there – it is a happy place to be. If you take care of student wellbeing then student achievement takes care of itself.

Bibliography

Boniwell, I. (2008). Positive Psychology in a nutshell: A balanced introduction to the science of optimal functioning. (2nd ed). PWBC London. Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity. Crown Publishers, New York.

Fredrickson, B. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of general psychology, 2, 300-319.

Fredrickson., B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotion broadens the scope of attention and the thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19 (3), 313-332.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a.

Fredrickson, B. L., & Losada, M. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist,60 (7) 678-686.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2003). The value of positive emotions. American Scientist, 91, 330-335.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity. Crown Publishers, New York.

Gable, S. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E. A., & Asher, E. R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 228-245.

Gottman, J. (1994), What Predicts Divorce?: The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes

Lewis, S.. (2015). Positive Psychology and Change How Leadership, Collaboration and Appreciative Inquiry Create Transformational Results. Wiley Blackwell.