What is Positive Education?

Positive education applies the insights of positive psychology to the world of schools. It expands the purpose of education beyond academic achievement to also include well-being, resilience, motivation, character strengths, and healthy relationships. Its central idea is simple: children learn best when they feel well, function well, and believe in their own ability to grow.

In recent decades, education has focused primarily on academic knowledge, asking, “How can we help students achieve more?” This mission remains essential — yet it is not the whole story. Schools are also places where children develop habits, values, and life skills that shape who they will become as adults.

Positive education emerged from the understanding that well-being and learning are deeply interconnected. When students experience support, belonging, optimism, engagement, and meaning, they are more motivated, more resilient, and better able to learn.

Just as positive psychology asks how people can thrive, positive education asks how schools can help students flourish — academically, emotionally, socially, and personally. Its goal is to create learning environments where students not only do well but also feel well.

Students learn better when they feel better. Techers teach better when they feel better.

Where, When, and How? Integrating Positive Psychology into Education

Education systems often measure what’s easy—tests—while sidelining what’s essential: wellbeing. Yet the evidence is simple: students learn better when they feel better, and so do teachers.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 19, 20253 min read

PERMA—Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment—maps the core of wellbeing.

Nurturing PERMA (The Pillars of Well-Being) in Education

The PERMA model captures the foundations of a flourishing life. Each pillar matters, and together they form a balanced path to resilience, motivation, and fulfillment. In education, this shift is transformative: when students feel safe, valued, and purposeful, attention improves, curiosity deepens, and academic growth accelerates.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 18, 20253 min read

No single factor shapes our well-being and life satisfaction more deeply than the quality of relationships.

Nurturing RELATIONSHIPS (The Heart of Happiness and Well-Being) in Education

No single factor shapes wellbeing more than relationships. Trusting, caring bonds multiply joy, gratitude, and meaning—and buffer stress and loss. In classrooms and preschools, relationship skills are not “extras”; they are core learning.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 16, 20254 min read

The ability to experience and cultivate positive emotions — joy, love, serenity, curiosity, gratitude, hope — is the emotional fuel of a flourishing life.

Nurturing POSITIVE EMOTIONS in Education

Positive emotions broaden attention, deepen creativity, and support better health and performance. The ability to experience and cultivate joy, love, serenity, curiosity, gratitude, hope... is the emotional fuel of a flourishing life.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 15, 20254 min read

When we engage in activities that truly interest us — activities that demand our full presence and focus — we enter a state of deep engagement.

Nurturing ENGAGEMENT in Education

Engagement is the felt sense of being “all in.” It appears when tasks are meaningful, just-right challenging, and invite strengths and creativity. When both teachers and kids experience it, classrooms become places of vitality, creativity, and connection.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 14, 20254 min read

Meaning connects effort with purpose and transforms routine into fulfillment.

Nurturing MEANING in Education

School can be a place where purpose, connection, and contribution take root. When learning feels relevant and valuable, children feel motivated, engaged, and part of something bigger. And when teachers feel inspired and autonomous, they naturally pass that sense of meaning on to their students.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 12, 20253 min read

Our achievements — big or small — strengthen our self-worth and self-confidence.

Nurturing SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT in Education

Accomplishment is the lived sense of “I can do this.” It grows when goals are clear, effort is coached, and progress is visible. Authentic achievement isn’t outperforming others; shifting attention from comparison to personal progress lead to stable self-respect.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 11, 20253 min read

PERMA model provides a framework for reflection and practical steps that can improve not only our well-being but also the well-being of those around us.

Positive Education and PERMA - From Reflection to Action

Wellbeing isn’t a waiting room; it’s a practice. It's built moment by moment as a result of tiny, daily actions for Relationships, Positive Emotions, Engagement, Meaning, and Accomplishment that lead to better relationships, more hope, more focus, clearer purpose, and steady progress.

Kristijan Musek Lešnik

Nov 8, 20254 min read