I am fortunate enough to be part of the Positive Education Committee, here at school. This afternoon, we completed presenting a two-day Professional Development workshop, introducing the science and benefits of Positive Psychology-and how it can be used in an Educational environment, ie Positive Education- to our 120+ colleagues.
Positive Psychology is an area of research that studies the positive aspects of personality, as valued throughout history and various world cultures. Researchers, most notably Dr. Martin Seligman from UPenn, noticed that certain character traits were repeatedly valued over thousands of years of human development. Those 24 traits-or Strengths-were grouped into 6 Virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence.
I was part of a team that explored Character Strengths with our colleagues at school. During the Workshop, we asked our colleagues to complete a 20 minute survey to identify their personal Character Strengths. It proved to be a very rewarding-and interesting-exercise. One colleague reflected that "it was nice to have my sense of self validated."
People were not shocked or terribly surprised about what they had learned; after they saw their results and thought about it for a bit, most people thought it was accurate.
So what did I learn by co-presenting this workshop? I learned that I really enjoyed sharing my understandings with my colleagues. I learned that, while presenting a workshop is a bit nerve-wracking, it was very rewarding and, in the end, fun. I learned that I love all forms of teaching-whether it be with children or adults. And really, none of this should be a surprise for me as "Love of Learning", "Kindness", and "Social Intelligence" were in my top ten!
Positive Psychology is an area of research that studies the positive aspects of personality, as valued throughout history and various world cultures. Researchers, most notably Dr. Martin Seligman from UPenn, noticed that certain character traits were repeatedly valued over thousands of years of human development. Those 24 traits-or Strengths-were grouped into 6 Virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence.
I was part of a team that explored Character Strengths with our colleagues at school. During the Workshop, we asked our colleagues to complete a 20 minute survey to identify their personal Character Strengths. It proved to be a very rewarding-and interesting-exercise. One colleague reflected that "it was nice to have my sense of self validated."
People were not shocked or terribly surprised about what they had learned; after they saw their results and thought about it for a bit, most people thought it was accurate.
So what did I learn by co-presenting this workshop? I learned that I really enjoyed sharing my understandings with my colleagues. I learned that, while presenting a workshop is a bit nerve-wracking, it was very rewarding and, in the end, fun. I learned that I love all forms of teaching-whether it be with children or adults. And really, none of this should be a surprise for me as "Love of Learning", "Kindness", and "Social Intelligence" were in my top ten!
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