Changing Behaviour in Schools

My latest article for Positive Psychology News Daily is a review of a new Positive Psychology-based book by ed psych and consultant Sue Roffey, called Changing Behaviour in Schools: Promoting Positive Relationships and Well-being.

One of the great strengths of this book is its breadth, not just in terms of aims but also its evidence base. It draws on quantitative research from more than a dozen areas including restorative approaches, school culture and leadership, mental health, and values education, not just positive psychology. Thus the suggested approaches have a multi-dimensional foundation.  Not surprisingly, there isn’t space in just over 200 pages to describe positive psychology theories or research in great depth.

Roffey makes use of most of the main positive psychology concepts, such as flow, strengths, resilience, optimism, positive emotions, and emotional intelligence, although with the exception of emotional intelligence, they aren’t described in detail. Depending on your expectations and your association with positive psychology, this might be a disappointment or a welcome relief! I particularly liked the chapter on Being and Becoming Emotionally Literate, with its 11 dimensions of social and emotional literacy, and numerous questions for personal development.

I love the core message, which is that school can be a positive transformational experience, and that building positive relationships and school connectedness lead to both improved learning and better behaviour for all students.

Despite its limitations, I think this is a fabulous resource book for anyone working in primary or secondary education. Dip into almost any page and you will find some gem of information, a question that will challenge your thinking, an activity, or an insightful case study. If you picked up this book expecting it to help you manage challenging student behaviour you may be in for a surprise. It does this exceeding well in my opinion, but it does much more than that.

This book sets out the expectation that everyone in an education role, every teacher, trainee, teaching assistant, support person, and early childhood practitioner, can be a role model of well-being. Changing behaviour is schools is based on the premise that a theoretical knowledge of the subject isn’t sufficient. Teachers have to be able to do well-being in order to teach well-being.

For the full review, click here.

• some new research by Nathaniel Lambert, A. Marlea Gwinn, Tyler Stillman and Frank Fincham on how sharing positive experiences can boost your vitality and help you overcome tiredness,
• An interview with Barbara Fredrickson (famous for the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions), and
• A review of the film Happy, directed by Roko Belic

This edition is quite a lot shorter than the previous two – does this reflect a lack of material, or positive psychologists’ preference to be published in ‘traditional’ positive psychology journals? Whichever it is, let’s hope it isn’t a trend that will continue.

Hefferon & Boniwell's Book

Unusually for me, my posting for Positive Psychology News this month is a book review, Kate Hefferon and Ilona Boniwell’s Positive Psychology: Theory, Research and Applications. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a textbook, in short it’s a highly enjoyable, educational, and engaging read, well worth the £18-£20 it’s currently selling for online. It includes all the usual subjects such as positive emotions, subjective well-being and resilience, lots of new research, and topics you won’t find mentioned in other positive psychology textbooks, like the positive body, sex and positive death. I thoroughly recommend it whether you’re a student, lecturer, practitioner or positive psychology enthusiast. It’s so good it’s now at the top of our list of recommended reads on our Positive Psychology Masterclass!

For the full review, click here.

Part 1:

Keynote 1: Stopping the Insanity: Promoting Positive Mental Health is Sanity in a World Needing Better Mental Health - Corey Keyes, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology at Emory University, USA

Corey Keyes

Keynote 2: How Positive Emotions Work, and Why – Barbara Fredrickson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Part 2

Keynote 1: Occupational Health Psychology: A European Perspective – Wilmar Schaufeli, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.

Creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, talks about the need for revolution in the education system.

“Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of. I meet all kinds of people who don’t think they’re really good at anything”, he says. This sounds very familiar to me – only today I was working with some public sector admin staff who had no idea of their strengths, or that there might be a role for them at work in which they could really flourish, rather than just survive the 9-5.  We focussed on ways to identify and apply their strengths in the workplace using the VIA-Inventory of Strengths* – and it was a real eye-opener for them.

Robinson talks about the need for an organic “agricultural model” of education, in which the conditions necessary for flourishing are created, rather than the linear, “manufacturing model”, which merely standardises everything, and squashes creativity and talent, as well as depleting our spirit and energy.

A brilliant short talk, which brings ideas such as strengths, flow, positive energy, flourishing, authenticity, meaning and spirituality to life, all without mentioning Positive Psychology once. An inspiration.

* You can do this inventory yourself for free here: it takes about 30 minutes to do, and you get an immediate report of your strengths in order. Well worth it.

Thanks to Morten Mortensen for the link.

Teaching at its best

Here’s a link to my article on Positive Psychology News Daily this month, about teachers’ wellbeing, and wellbeing in schools generally.

As usual, please feel free to add your thoughts and comments here, or on the PPND website.

Image: Thanks to Chicago 2016

• Well-Being and Behavioural Economics : David Willetts, MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Innovations, Skills and Universities, UK

• Half-Life – Education for Well-being : Anthony Seldon, Master, Wellington College, UK

• Positive Psychology as a Force for Social Change: Robert Biswas-Diener, Debasish Sen Sharma, and Alex Linley

If you’d like to comment or ask questions, you can do that here or on the PPND website.

For other reviews of the CAPP keynotes by my colleague Timothy So, click here.

As with any happiness or life satisfaction league table, who comes top depends on exactly what’s being measured and how. In this article by The Observer journalist John Carlin, Iceland is referred to as the happiest country in the world. How can this be? We all know that it’s Denmark!

Carlin’s conclusion is based on Iceland’s ranking in the Human Development Index (HDI), one of the four United Nations assessments of human potential – it measures three basic dimensions – a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.

1. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth,
2. Education is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio in primary, secondary, and tertiary education,
3. Standard of living is measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP US$).

So the HDI isn’t actually quantifying either happiness or life satisfaction, and it’s questionable (in Positive Psychology terms) whether health, wealth and education significantly contribute to happiness anyway.

In fact there are some elements of Icelandic society which would contradict the conclusion that it’s one of the best countries in the world to live in, for example, the highest divorce rate in Europe. However, this doesn’t mean they have unhappy families – in fact writes Carlin, “The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them, and likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody of the children will be shared”.

The article provides further insights into those character traits which might explain why Icelanders are generally happy people (if not the happiest), for example, optimism, resilience, self-confidence and a can-do attitude. That said, if we follow Lyubomirsky’s “Happiness Pie” model, after genes (50%), what we chose to do with our time is the largest contributor (40%) to our happiness – do we have any readers who could comment on how the average happy Icelander spends his/her time?

Whether or not it’s the happiest country, Iceland takes first place in the 2007/08 HDI, followed by Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland. The USA is in 12th position, Denmark 14th and the UK 16th. At the bottom , not surprisingly are the West African countries of Guinea (175th), Burkina Faso (176th) and Sierra Leone (177th). For the full list, see here.

Image: Gúnna

But does it have to be an either/or solution? It might be more effective if separate EI lessons aren’t added into the curriculum (which would mean that some other lessons have to be squeezed out) but if existing subjects, like English, Drama and History are adapted to focus on the relevant EI topics (like self-awareness and motivation). In this way, an EI approach becomes incorporated into the fabric of the school, and ultimately becomes ‘the way we do things round here’. It’s a bit like trying to change the culture in an organisation – it doesn’t work unless behaviours also change.

And there are a couple of interesting points which do need to be explored further in order to get parents and teachers on side with this. The first is whether or not EI can actually be measured – as with happiness and well-being assessments, much of it is subjective. Does that mean they are any less meaningful or useful? In a system so tied in to targets and league-tables, this may not be an easy one to resolve.

The second is whether EI can be increased through teaching or training. It is true that a greater number of EI assessments are being used in the business world today, to help enhance ones skill in recognising and understanding emotions, ultimately enabling them to be managed more effectively. What we don’t know is whether ones EI can be increased – even the experts behind the original EI theory, Mayer, Salovey and Caruso are unsure about this.

Most people working in the positive psychology field appear to welcome the introduction of EI into British schools. If we want it to be successful, however, there is one big caveat….DON’T create an EI league table!