With Labor Day behind us, Fall is the time when we really spring ahead. September is full of opportunities for new beginnings, as millions of us return to school and work. What a perfect time for us to consider making some positive changes in the culture of our communities—at home, at school, and at work.
Don’t […]

In education there are a number of cookbooks. They may be called “curriculum frameworks” or something similarly sturdy and substantial sounding. Some have actually been around for years despite being touted as the outcomes of education reform. They serve the same purpose as kitchen cookbooks (attempting to guarantee a consistent outcome) and as such are bound by the same limitations. However, in an education system which is under fire from many quarters, cookbook education can sometimes rightly be seen by administrators in charge of “making the numbers” as the most easily defensible program a system can take.

Positive Psychology Detractor Exorcised by Big Leap
In his new book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholia, Eric G. Wilson blends his experience as a sufferer of chronic sadness and as a scholar of the Romantic period and comes up with “proof” that negative emotions and experience lead to creativity. That is quite a leap!! This […]

Nearly all of us have had the sudden awareness that while we have been driving along, sometimes for many miles, we have not been paying attention. How did I get here? It does not just happen on the interstate in the form of highway hypnosis but also when driving through our neighborhoods or on our […]

A new study from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania seems to refute a widely held intuitive belief as well as one that has been well-researched. Despite what you may have believed, according to the new study, it turns out that money CAN buy happiness. Or maybe it says that money DOES buy happiness. Well, maybe both, but not exactly either, it turns out if you read the actual study and understand its constructs.

Florida State University researcher K. Anders Ericsson is best known for his work as the expert on expertise, studying top performers in fields as diverse as medicine, athletics, chess and music. Ericsson set out to find out what makes some people the “best of the best.”
What he has discovered may contradict everything you have come […]

If you have not read it, I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis. One of Haidt’s metaphors, more thoroughly explained in the book, is the very accessible image of the rider (conscious reasoning self) and the elephant (automatic and unconscious self).

Thinking v. Feeling

The rider can see farther into the distance, plan and sometimes anticipate […]

“[Appreciative Inquiry] deliberately seeks to discover people’s exceptionality – their unique gifts, strengths, and qualities. It actively searches and recognizes people for their specialties – their essential contributions and achievements. And it is based on principles of equality of voice – everyone is asked to speak about their vision of the true, the good, and […]

The strengths movement is gaining momentum in education. Kids are often very insightful about their strengths and those of others. Sometimes the people closest to them understand them least well, too. Reconsidering the way we think about the behavior of the children in our care and understanding what might be the strength behind an […]