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.

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, in which I discuss ways of applying Fredrickson’s “Broaden and Build” theory of positive emotions in ways that organisations will find acceptable, as well as useful.

Your comments and thoughts are welcome here, and on the PPND website.

Image: Thanks to Joe Shlabotnik

You’ll be delighted to know that Martin Seligman is the keynote speaker at UEL’s one day Positive Psychology Conference on Thursday 8th November. Also speaking are Dr Susan David, an Emotional Intelligence expert, Dr Alex Linley, founder and Director of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, Dr Gurnek Bains, CEO of corporate psychology consultancy YSC (Young Samuel Chambers), as well as our very own Dr Ilona Boniwell who established and leads the UK’s first MAPP programme at UEL. Details below.

Positive psychology, well-being and business: Cutting-edge science for organisational success
Thursday 8 November at the University of East London, Docklands, with Professor Martin Seligman

UEL would like to invite you to a special one-day conference, Positive Psychology, Well-being and Business, featuring a keynote speech from world-renowned psychologist Professor Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology.

Positive Psychology – the scientific study of well-being – is increasingly recognised as having major, lasting benefits for business. Evidence shows that employees with higher levels of well-being are more focused and engaged with their work; are better team-players; have higher levels of motivation; have less illness and absenteeism; and perform better overall.

This new thinking explicitly challenges the conventional wisdom that fixing a weakness is essential to improving performance. Rather, positive psychology concentrates on what drives and motivates success. Globally, many major organisations are implementing the findings of positive psychology and strengths-based performance management in the workplace, helping them to grow and succeed. This conference will enable you to learn how to put these findings into practice in your own business or organisation.

Whether you are involved in business, human resources, social and corporate responsibility, communication, organisational development, marketing, executive coaching, training or business consultancy, this conference could make a valuable contribution to your operational and staff development.

For more details and to register, visit www.uel.ac.uk/positiveconference or contact Sue Meade on 020 8223 4428.

Do let me know if you plan to go, I’d be delighted to meet up with you there.

There is increasing media coverage of the government’s plans to introduce lessons in emotional intelligence (EI) in schools in England, not all of it positive. Some argue that this initiative is needed to create a healthy balance after years of focusing on targets, league tables and standardised testing brought about by the introduction of the national curriculum. Others think it’s a load of liberal mumbo-jumbo which has no place in a system which fails to ensure all school leavers have basic maths and literacy skills. According to the recent 2007 CBI / Pertemps Employment Trends Survey 52% of employers are dissatisfied with the basic literacy of school leavers, and 50% with their basic numeracy.

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!

How the next generation will be better prepared for the challenges of the workplace.

The Times today reported that “lessons in happiness, well-being and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools”.

It’s unfortunate that the SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programme is being labelled in this way by the media, because it instantly downgrades its importance, putting it firmly in the category of pink and fluffy fads which we’d be better off without.

What SEAL is actually for is to promote children’s social and emotional skills which underpin effective learning, positive behaviour and emotional health and well-being in schools. “So what?”, I hear you ask. Well, for many years now, various employment and business related organisations in the UK, such as the Confederation of British Industry, have been highly critical of employees’ lack of (so-called) soft-skills. In 2004/5, Sir Digby Jones, then Director-General of the CBI said of new graduates:

“A degree alone is not enough. Employers are looking for more than just technical skills and knowledge of a degree discipline. They particularly value skills such as communication, team working and problem solving. Job applicants who can demonstrate that they have developed these skills will have a real advantage”.

So you could say that the real point of the SEAL programme in schools is to start providing kids with the necessary tools to develop their self-awareness, empathy, motivation, social skills and ability to manage their emotions, so that ultimately they can become successful members of the community and successful in the workplace. Makes perfect sense now, doesn’t it?

Thanks to Bruce Stanley for the Times article.