27 Feb What’s the value in teaching teachers about happiness and positive psychology?
There’s been quite a bit of media focus over the last few days about the Department of Education sending teachers and administrators to “happy classes”. In reality, these weren’t “happiness classes” but rather, workshops focusing on teaching the principles of positive psychology and they were delivered by Prof. Martin Seligman, one of the leaders in this area anywhere in the world.
Now I’ve taken quite an interest in this debate because (1) I’ve spend quite a bit of time in the last year or so working with teachers and schools to integrate positive psychology into their work and (2) I’ve been approached by multiple radio stations and print publications over the last 48 hours and asked to comment!
The bottom line is these courses, when run by appropriately qualified professionals, are enormously valuable and there’s a good argument for stating that they’re even more important during these tough times.
If you’d like to know more about my thoughts on this and/or what we here at The Happiness Institute can do with your school then feel free to email drhappy@thehappinessinstitute.com
If you’d like to read more, including a defence of the courses by Julia Gillard – click here