Theory, Research and Practice
Table 1 Why won’t it stick? positive psychology and positive education
From: Why won’t it Stick? Positive Psychology and Positive Education
Reasons against | What is said in the school hallway | What it means |
|---|---|---|
Financial | “We don’t have any budget for any of that type of innovation!” | The perspective that a substantial budget is required to drive change and systems improvement |
It’s marginal | “You want to focus on well-being? Where are the immediate benefits, what about teaching them to write!” | It is perceived as a marginal topic from serious mainstream educational improvement strategies |
Either/or thinking | “Well you can’t have your cake and eat it. It is either maths or making them feel good” | At a policy level is seen often seen through the lens of an either/or model: it’s well-being or literacy, well-being or numeracy. It is rarely well-being and numeracy |
Maverick providers | “I did the 3 day course let me tell you about my strategy for 1000 students” | Mavericks, swindlers and second tier training stand to make a huge amount of money from well-being training programs under the guide of various institutions promise to ‘train’ teachers in well-being |
Scientism | “Well, according to the latest science” | It blindly can become scientism where the scientism method is seen as the most authoritative approach and can over look underlying assumptions and philosophies |
Not central to good governance | “Have you any idea what the unemployment rate is our district!” | Discussion about well-being is a distraction from much larger questions policy including: productivity, healthcare and energy |
The silver bullet | “You have ticked al the boxes … well, if the well-being of teachers is right, the well-being of students is right—then they will be able to read better” | It can appear be sold as a silver bullet or Trojan Horse that can fix all of the challenges in education. This is sometime characterised by the oversimplified statement “get their well-being right and then everything will follow” |
Social economic status and culture | “All are students are languishing, so how can they learn?” | Well-being is an excuse for policy makers not to address declining performance stands in reading, science and mathematics |