Positive Psychology/Edu- Background and Application

We have been very fortunate this year to have Carla, Andrew and David join us from the Institute of Positive Education. They helped us to unpack the tenets of Positive Psychology in education and the Character Strengths to help us learn and live PERMAH in our daily lives. As we in time will look out to the teaching phase of our wellness program, I would like to introduce another resource to help us continue the learning and living phases with a little look out to the teaching phase of our wellness program.

The folks at Unleashing Personal Potential (UPP) like those at the Institute of Positive Education are based in Australia. They are led by Luke McKenna. UPP provides PD and curriculum as well as several free resources including their blog.

Luke authored a very helpful eBook that combines foundational learning and application of Pos Psych into the classroom. The eBook is Making Wellbeing Practical: An Effective Guide to Help Schools Thrive. You can download a copy here. The first half of the eBook reviews Positive Psychology and PERMAH. It is loaded with research from leaders in the field.

The second half of the eBook provides lessons and activities. Each lesson starts with the targeted PERMAH pillar(s) followed by the description which often includes the integration of character strengths.

UPP like several educational content provides some of their curriculum free for teachers to try out. Their sample lessons are for MS and HS so our elementary teachers can get a feel for the standalone lessons possibilities that in some cases could be adapted for our upper primary students. Do understand that this blog post is in no way a promotion of their material. The intent is to start to start to paint the picture of what Positive Psychology could look like in the classroom and advisory.

Here are the UPP sample lessons for your review.

You can take a look and decide for yourself if there is value for your further learning and living of Pos Psych in education.

Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash