Positive Psychology and Positive Education

When positive psychology steps into the classroom and brings the science of well-being, strengths, and resilience into teaching and learning, it becomes positive education. Positive education help schools nurture not only knowledge and skills, expanding education beyond academic achievement to include well-being, resilience, and character.

It is important that we teach children how to count.

But it is just as important that we teach them what counts in life.

The term positive education is even younger than positive psychology. Its meaning, however, is simple: positive education brings the insights, methods, and techniques of applied positive psychology into the school environment.

Positive education views schools as places whose purpose goes beyond academic achievement. It connects psychology and educational science — combining the insights of positive psychology with effective teaching practices to encourage and support the fulfillment of the potential of individuals, schools, and communities.

Developing Skills for Well-Being and Growth

Positive education focuses on developing the life-skills that help students:

• build healthy, strong, and lasting relationships,

• experience positive feelings and emotions,

• maintain personal resilience,

• cultivate mindful awareness of the here and now, and

• strengthen healthy habits and a balanced lifestyle.

A Broader Vision of What Schools Can Be

Positive education understands schools as places where children and young people grow in many ways — not only intellectually, but also socially, emotionally, and personally. It highlights the importance of helping students develop character strengths, virtues, and life competencies that support stable, lasting psychological well-being.

For this reason, positive education places one of its central aims on creating school environments that genuinely support the flourishing of everyone in the community — children, young people, teachers, and staff alike.

Beyond Performance and Test Scores...

In recent decades, educational systems around the world prioritized achievement and measurable outcomes — test results, grades, and international rankings — as the main indicators of school success. Positive education represents a significant shift away from the view that places academic performance at the sole center of schooling.

... Toward a More Whole-Child Understanding of Education

In recent years, more and more schools, teachers, and experts have been calling for education to balance its focus on cognitive and academic development with an equal emphasis on the mental, social, emotional, physical, and even spiritual growth of children and young people.

This shift is driven in part by a growing recognition that paying more attention to well-being and psychological health does not lower academic achievement — in fact, the opposite is true. When the overall quality of life in schools improves, learning outcomes tend to rise as well.

Read more:

What is Positive Psychology

Why Did Positive Psychology Emerge

When Did Positive Psychology Emerge

The Myth of Constant Happiness

The Foundations of Positive Psychology

What is Subjective Well-Being

Positive education brings wellbeing science into classrooms. #793teaching #growhumans

© dr. Kristijan Musek Lešnik & GrowHumans.

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