POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY in the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM PDF

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POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY in the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM Patty O’Grady, PhD Dedication I dedicate this book to Amanda, who is my unofficial coauthor and who mastered the gift of positive psychology when she was 3 years old and gives it freely to everyone she meets. CONTENTS Cover Title Page Dedicatio...

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POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY in the

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM Patty O’Grady, PhD

Dedication I dedicate this book to Amanda, who is my unofficial coauthor and who mastered the gift of positive psychology when she was 3 years old and gives it freely to everyone she meets.

CONTENTS Cover Title Page Dedication Introduction Chapter 1: The Promise of Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom Teaching Positive Psychology in the Classroom Philosophical, Psychological, and Educational Roots of Positive Psychology Principles and Practices of Positive Psychology in the Classroom Benefits of Teaching Positive Psychology in the Classroom Summary and Conclusion Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 2: The Neuroscience of Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom Academic and Emotional Learning in the Classroom Brain Basics: Understanding How the Brain Changes and Learns in the Classroom Applying Neuroscience Principles and Practices in the Classroom Teaching to the Brain: A Strengths-Based Approach Summary and Conclusion Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children

Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 3: The Taxonomy of Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom The Benchmarks of the Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy A Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy Matrix: Benchmarks and Indicators A Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy: Methods and Techniques Summary and Conclusion Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 4: Teaching Positive Emotions and the Pleasant Life: Feelings The Importance of Emotional Learning in Positive Psychology The Positive Psychology Teacher’s Toolbox: Emotional Learning Summary and Conclusion Case Study K–2: Teaching Positive Emotion Case Study 3–5: Teaching Positive Emotion Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 5: Teaching Engagement and the Good Life: Strengths The Importance of Engagement Through Strength Learning in Positive Psychology The Positive Psychology Teacher’s Toolbox: Engagement Through Strength Summary and Conclusion Case Study K–2: Teaching Strengths Learning Case Study 3–5: Teaching Strengths Learning Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers

Chapter 6: Teaching Relationships and the Connected Life: Friendship The Importance of Friendship Learning in Positive Psychology The Positive Psychology Teacher’s Toolbox: Connected Learning Summary and Conclusion Case Study K–2: Teaching Friendship Case Study 3–5: Teaching Friendship Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 7: Teaching Meaning and the Purposeful Life: Contributions The Importance of Meaningful Learning in Positive Psychology The Positive Psychology Teacher’s Toolbox: Meaningful Learning Summary and Conclusion Case Study K–2: Teaching Meaning Case Study 3–5: Teaching Meaning Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Chapter 8: Teaching Achievement and Success: The Accomplished Life The Importance of Successful Learning in Positive Psychology The Positive Psychology Teacher’s Toolbox: Successful Learning Summary and Conclusion The Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy: Guiding Propositions Case Study K–2: Teaching Accomplishment Case Study 3–5: Teaching Accomplishment Guiding Question Exercise Guiding Question Discussion Web Resources for Children Web Resources for Teachers Appendix I: Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy: Benchmarks and Indicators Appendix II: Positive Psychology Planning Template: Taxonomy of Techniques Appendix III: Positive Psychology Planning Template: Class Meetings

Appendix IV: Positive Psychology Planning Template: Emotions Literature Circle Appendix V: Positive Psychology Teaching Taxonomy: Graphic Organizers Appendix VI: Positive Psychology According to Winnie the Pooh Appendix VII: Positive Psychology Lesson Plan Template Notes Acknowledgments Index Copyright

INTRODUCTION Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act rightly because we are excellent; in fact we achieve excellence by acting rightly. —Plato As I write this book, I am sitting in a chair with my laptop looking out my window that overlooks the Seddon Channel in Tampa, Florida, where the dragon boats are assembling for the 2011 Tenth Annual International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) World Championship Dragon Boat Races. This is the highest level of competition in the sport of dragon boat racing and is hosted every two years in cities across the globe from Yue Yang, China (’95), to Nottingham (’99) to Shanghai (’04). The competitors will race five different courses at 18 different competition levels. While I write, dragon boat crews arrive from 27 different nations, from Australia and Brazil to India and Macau to Trinidad and Tobago. About 2,000 competitors paddle graceful boats that skim the water under my window. I am distracted, watching the boats and the crews. They revel in the pleasures of my pretty city. They cheer each other down the river, use their strong arms to move the boats effortlessly through the water, paddle together in perfect unison to the rhythm of the dragon boat drumbeat. They enjoy simply being a part of it all whether they win the race or not. Surely, this is the pleasant, good, connected, meaningful, and accomplished life floating on colorful display beneath my gaze. There are 20 paddlers in each dragon boat, including a lead pair of paddlers who are called pacers or timers. All other paddlers synchronize their strokes with the pacer on the opposite side of the boat from where they sit—not with the pace paddler in front of them—because the direction of the boat is propelled not by individual paddlers but by the crew’s sweep or momentum. The most important consideration in the cycle of the stroke is taking the paddle in and out of the water and keeping it straight up. A vertical orientation is the only way to maintain optimal paddle attitude. Properly executed, this upright move uses the gravitational weight of the paddler herself to generate an enormous impulse

power that is not otherwise achievable. Upward and onward: similar to how aspects of positive psychology are related, the paddlers do not look ahead to compete but look to their partners to coordinate. They keep their paddles upright in the wind or in rough water to maintain optimal flow, and they work together to maintain forward momentum. The paddlers also depend on the drummer, who sits at the front of the boat and calls the stroke—he is the boat’s heartbeat. The paddler needs the drummer’s beat to work together rhythmically. The paddlers also need the sweep standing in the stern to call the directions and steer the boat down the center of the lane. In a positive psychology classroom, the children are the paddlers, the teacher is the sweep, and the lessons are the drum. The spiritual and mystical history of the dragon boats lends itself to teaching the good life. Dragon boat makers construct a long boat, often of teak, decorated with a dragonhead at the front and a dragon tail at the back. The first boats date back 2,500 years when they raced on the Yangtze River in southern central China. Dragon boat racing is a happy part of the many Chinese water rituals and festivals that celebrate the venerable Asian water dragon. Annual dragon boat festivals are part of ancient ceremonial religious traditions that honor the mythical Asian dragon deities who, in Chinese culture, represent a spirit of strength and vitality. Dragons are regarded as wholesome and beneficent, and they are thus worthy of loyalty and celebration. Among the dragon boat crews outside my window are teams of cancer survivors, inner-city children, and corporate executives. They are all friends, athletes, and competitors. They, and the families who applaud from the shoreline, are all happy and joyful, emanating a sense of physical and mental well-being. I am tempted to abandon my work and rush down to hand out wellbeing questionnaires in order to quantify what I observe. Outside my window, the sun is shining brilliantly on the sparkling blue water and there is a flotilla of dragon boats in an array of strikingly different colors and patterns but all in the same shape. The teams are lively and spirited; they shout to each other, laugh, create a flow down the river, and enjoy the exhilarating emotions they feel, the signature strength they bring, the contribution they make to their team, the meaning of the festival, and the accomplishment of paddling as fast as they can down the course offering their personal best—win or lose. As the teacher in me watches from my window, I construct a positive psychology dragon boat curriculum in my head. From kindergarten to sixth grade, with just a little creative elbow grease, the dragon boats can easily teach

children about history, art, music, philosophy, geography, mathematics, physics, biology, ecology, and more, with positive psychology at the core of it all. We can research the boats, write about them, build model replicas, measure them, decorate them, drum the rhythms, and learn the history of the countries that race them. The class will consider the positive emotion that paddlers must evoke to compete by appreciating the blue sky above and the calm sea below. The children can assess their signature strength by striving to become a lead paddler someday. They will understand how every paddler in the boat helps or hinders the race over the water and they know it matters to all the others how well each one performs in synchronicity. Lastly, the children will understand that the accomplishment is in crossing the finish line. Whether they win or lose, they figure out how to inspire the paddlers, drummer, and sweep to be excited to try again next year in some other wonderful part of the world as part of a festival that everyone enjoys. Surely, positive psychology is everywhere if we only know where to look for it and share it. This book intends to help teachers understand it, value it, and learn to use it with passion and proficiency. My ideas as to how to do it will end where yours begin: This book is meant to stimulate your ideas. Building on children’s capacity to flourish in the classroom and throughout their lifetime must begin with a cohesive approach to teaching positive psychology. While the research and practice of social emotional learning begin the process, they bifurcate emotional learning and social skills rather than conceptualizing them across a continuum. To the extent that children develop neuroscientifically validated emotional strength, they are better equipped to apply these to the art of friendship and the pursuit of fulfillment in the quest for accomplishment. The focus of positive psychology is the cultivation of emotional strength. Those positive emotions and strengths can build relationships into true friendships and can imbue all learning activities with meaning. My book’s starting point is Martin Seligman’s positive psychology principles. I translate them into positive psychology practices for elementary school teachers. These practices are the tenets of Positive Emotion, Engagement through Strength, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. I begin with an overview of affective learning, including its philosophical and psychological roots, from finding the golden mean of emotional regulation to finding a child’s potencies and golden self. The conversation then continues to connect the core concepts in educational neuroscience to the principles of positive psychology. Core concepts help to explain how feelings permeate the brain, affecting

children’s thoughts and actions, how insular neurons make us feel empathy and help us learn by observation, and how the frontal cortex is the brain’s hall monitor. Neuroscience teaches us that there is no bad behavior, only poorly regulated emotions and underdeveloped strengths. This foundation shapes the positive psychology teaching taxonomy that identifies standards, indicators, methods, and techniques for veteran and novice teachers alike to use in the elementary school classroom. I hope that this book will validate some of the positive psychology methods and techniques that teachers may already use. For others, it may introduce a new approach to teaching the whole child. After I introduce the positive psychology teaching taxonomy, each chapter will consider the best techniques to teach children how to generate positive emotion, identify and use their emotional strengths, make and keep friends, recognize the meaningful aspects of what they do, and accomplish goals. The book is full of unique and interactive teacher resources, from a comprehensive positive psychology curriculum to simple games, and presents the following 12 techniques: 1. Class greetings—how to use the language of positive psychology to get the day off to a good start and how to end the day with positive affirmations and reflections. 2. Class meetings—how to conduct various kinds of classroom interactions from friendship circles to goal-setting meetings. 3. Class pledges, creeds, and agreements—how to use positive psychology pledges to ensure that children commit to the aims and intentions of positive psychology and a promise to live the good life. 4. Reflective journals—how to use journal writing to create more positive self-talk. 5. Clubs and teams—how to organize clubs and teams to teach academics and positive psychology simultaneously. 6. Learning centers—how to develop learning centers that teach feelings, strengths, friendships, flow, and scaffold accomplishments. 7. Service learning—how to help others while helping to practice your own signature strengths. 8. E-learning—how to use digital tools to engage thoughts and feelings in flow learning. 9. Art, dance, drama, and music— how to use the arts to teach children emotional strengths.

10. Visualization and observation—how to help children envision and imitate their strengths. 11. Self-assessment and self-awareness—how to help children reflect and reconsider actions. 12. Self-talk—how to help children tell a positive story to themselves through self-narratives. Twenty years ago, while traveling in the most remote parts of North Vietnam into the mountain village of Don Hoa in Minh Hoa district, my young children, my husband, and I encountered a large group of more than 100 children who did not speak English and who had never met an American. We were traveling as a family in a dangerous area under central government protection. The crowd pressed forward into our heavily protected, barbed-wire encampment, curious to see and greet us. The energy was high and the local officials used switches to chase the children away. As the scene became more chaotic, my teacher instincts took over. I stood up in the open jeep where we were sitting and began to chant and gesture: “1-2-3 . . . A-B-C.” After each chant, I clapped for the crowd and they imitated me by clapping along. Children and their parents stopped pushing and shoving and now happily chanted along with me with big smiles on their faces. This impromptu lesson went on for about 15 minutes until the crowd easily dispersed, waving good-bye and lifting their fingers to count. At nightfall in that faraway village, two little brown-eyed boys slipped past the compound guards, past the barbed wire, and tapped on my window. Smiling, they chanted, “1-2-3 . . . A-B-C” and clapped. Then they scurried away a few steps ahead of the guards chasing them. Positive psychology recognizes universal feelings and strengths, creates meaningful interactions with others, and offers a sense of satisfaction and joy. Teaching positive psychology trades the negative for the positive in a guarded compound, invites engagement by sharing strength far from home, connects new friends even across insurmountable language and cultural barriers, encourages collective action that all can enjoy, and leaves everyone feeling a little more accomplished. Teachers send children into their future while hoping they remember the most important lessons. A. A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh’s adventures, sums up my book with these words: “If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

CHAPTER 1

THE PROMISE OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM The beginning is the most important part of the work.

—Plato

Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal functioning associated with physical, mental, social, and emotional well-being, along with the “strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.”1 With the advent of positive psychology, psychologists shifted their focus from helping those with emotional deficits to lead functional lives to helping ordinary people to improve their lives. Positive psychology makes the good even better. Positive psychology considers how all people can cultivate positive attitudes, build their personal strengths, and find deeper happiness in their lives and communities. Yet this ability to thrive and to flourish depends on the individual’s unique emotional strengths that underpin positive psychological and personal adjustment in all areas of learning and life. In the elementary classroom, integrating positive psychology into the academic curriculum has the power to dramatically improve children’s academic achievement by helping them to stay optimistic, delay gratification, strengthen willpower, increase resiliency, build meaningful social relationships, and find greater meaning and satisfaction. There can be no more important academic or life lesson for children to learn and there is no more important lesson for the teacher to teach them. Children who develop those qualities are more likely to succeed in their lifelong endeavors, large and small, because they are equipped to overcome the adversity, failure, and difficulties that are inevitable in life. What’s more, they develop a lasting happiness, have a deeper appreciation for life, earn better grades, and live more accomplished lives.

Adopting a positive psychology worldview, the teacher abandons the deficiency model in education and her attention shifts from what is wrong in education to what is right in education, and how to replicate it. Positive psychology in the classroom and the ways that the teacher shapes the lesson to be consistent with neuroscience principles of learning facilitate achievement and accomplishment. The hallmark of positive psychology is the emotional strength that self-actualizes well-being. Positive psychology experiences, whether the experience is a field trip, sharing a sandwich with a friend, picking up trash on the beach, or acting out emotions in a school play, enrich life and teach important life lessons. When the teacher implements positive psychology in the classroom, the expected learning outcomes are increased engagement and strength, increased positive emotions and emotional regulation, increased positive relations, and increased positive intentions. The by-product of this learning is an associated increase in confidence. Teachers sometimes forget the courage it takes to learn and the risks inherent in the learning. To do well in school, children risk embarrassment and rejection by exposing their most vulnerable fragile selves to insecurity and failure. Some teachers unintentionally condition anxiety, timidity, and compliance in children, and these learned reactions can interfere with academic, social, and emotional learning and can inhibit optimal functioning.

Teaching Positive Psychology in the Classroom There is no clear definition as to what constitutes teaching positive psychology in the classroom. The focus is most often on the somewhat random implementation of it. For the most part, ...