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.

“His goal is to advance the well-being of the world – one sector at a time”.

An interesting (and revealing) article from Stacey Burling at The Philadelphia Inquirer on Professor Martin Seligman, often quoted as the founding father of Positive Psychology.

Image courtesy of the US Army

It’s not often that you get something for nothing, particularly top quality scientific papers. However, you can now download ten Dec 2009 papers from some of the best-known Positive Psychology researchers including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Antonella Della Fave and the UK’s Stephen Joseph. See the Table of Contents below. Thanks to Ingrid Brdar for the link.

Here’s a great 25 minute documentary about the science of happiness, featuring Harvard’s Dr Daniel Gilbert (“Stumbling on Happiness”), Dr Angela Clow from the University of Westminster and my favourite,  Newcastle University’s Dr Daniel Nettle (“Happiness – The Science behind your Smile”).

Thanks to CoachFu for the link

Just to update you all – Ilona and I are delighted to see that The Happiness Equation has been published in German. According to my MAPP colleagues, Drs Marina Fiedler and Lars Fend, there are two books on the topic of happiness and well-being in the top ten at the moment – let’s hope The Happiness Equation joins them!