Articles

As we look forward to a new school year, my heart is filled with both gratitude and wonder, and a strong sense of pride at the many accomplishments and impact our schools are making in our community.

False dichotomies are evident in conversations around happiness and the good life. “Do I want to be an optimist OR a pessimist?”, “Should I focus on my strengths OR weaknesses?”, “Must I pursue happiness for others OR can I pursue happiness for myself?”. To address such questions, one can consider anchoring on key tenets in the Chinese tradition and applying the science of well-being to take pragmatic steps towards flourishing.

In a recent article on resilience written for the National Institute of Education’s journal, Dr Imelda Santos Caleon unpacks the complex concept of resilience and provides an overview of the more than five decades of research on this concept.

There have been several global reports on mental health that we have been made aware of and repercussions of which we are observing in our local contexts, of a radical shift in the psychological state of children, teachers and families.

Many definitions of leadership exist. Most people would agree that leadership involves the process of influencing others to get something done. Leadership ultimately involves human interaction and behaviour. Therefore, an important step in understanding leadership in different contexts is to focus on the drivers of human behaviour.

Positive psychology is a movement within psychology that concerns itself with promoting the positive aspects of human functioning. Researchers and scholars who support positive psychology are interested in the factors, processes and conditions which lead to happiness, flourishing and fulfilment. Understanding and developing one’s character strengths has been deemed one of the key approaches to achieve this goal.

Here are some recommendations for implementing mindfulness in your own school.

Learning dispositions, or habits of learning, are the different characteristics with which children approach the learning process. More specifically, some have referred to dispositions as enduring habits of mind and action, and the tendency to respond to situations in characteristic ways.

The following key principles shared by Westwood Primary School undergird our focus for a school to flourish, that is, to strive for both excellence, and for wellbeing, leveraging on character strengths of resilience, gratitude, community-spiritedness and future-ready confidence for the 21st century school.

Positive education, a movement that is gaining momentum across the world, works to create a school culture that supports caring, trusting relationships; encourage and support individuals and the community to flourish and focuses on specific skills that assist students to build positive emotions, enhance personal resilience, promote mindfulness and encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Optimism is associated with a healthier life. The Science of Optimism tells us that healthy longevity is based on genetics, wealth and possibly geography. To quote studies at the American Heart Association, the trait most associated with healthy longevity is optimism.

How do youths, in facing life problems, setbacks and challenges, overcome them? How can youths learn to support their peers in need? What are questions that we as educators (and parents) can ask ourselves to better understand and learn from the challenges that youths are going through, and empower our youths to develop character and to support one another?