Perspectives On Flourishing In Schools

This book provides perspectives and insights across the educational system for how we might move toward living out this wish in all schools. The chapters provide perspectives on fundamental questions that have been guiding recent research on wellbeing in schools: How do school communities flourish together? How does supporting educator wellbeing connect to teaching, learning, leading in schools? What characteristics, qualities and strategies support the wellbeing of the whole school community? This book is unique in that it answers these questions from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators in K-12 schools, as well as from university and the wider community. Importantly, these chapters provide a repertoire of varied answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How can we leverage what works well to grow more, to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute? These chapters serve as examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts ways they can grow wellbeing through a focused attention on building appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and leading in all schools.

Most educators will agree that they would love to see each student and staff member in schools flourish. Furthermore, it would be great to see entire communities experience the transformative power of circumstances that feature happy and vibrant learning. However, what does it mean to experience flourishing in schools? What is the role of positive leadership in this process? What can we learn from inquiring into the positive emotional and social aspects of the work of school leaders? Building on our research on flourishing in schools, this book highlights the stories and perspectives of educators and school leaders at all levels of the school system and demonstrate the intricacies of how positive leadership contributes to well-being in schools and encourages flourishing in these schools. This book aligns with a growing shift in psychology and organizational studies to frame research using phenomena and constructs such as resilience, compassion, hope, efficacy, self-determination and meaningfulness at work and in other areas of life. Research findings from the disciplines of both positive psychology and positive organization studies bring these positive research intelligences into the field of education to study what works in school leadership practices, what goes well, what supports growth, and what brings vitality to people in school organizations. Research in positive psychology contends that attending to the strengths, positive outlooks, habits and mental models, as opposed to a deficit-oriented perspective, is beneficial to increasing subjective wellbeing, by increasing resilience, vitality, and happiness and decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression. How we imagine leading, teaching and learning in schools are implicated in these understandings and help us to contemplate the benefits of focus positive leadership in school organizations. Powerful insights into human inquiry and positive psychology are gained through qualitative study and most of the chapters of this book are grounded in such research. Importantly, chapters in this book provide a varied repertoire of answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How does positive leadership leverage what works well to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute, encourage wellbeing for all and create school contexts of flourishing? This edited collection provides many examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts in ways that encourage them to shift and grow through moving toward appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and, especially, leading in all school contexts.

Featuring voices from academics, practitioners, school system leaders, school administrators, and graduate students from across Canada and abroad, this unique edited collection offers conceptual discussions and empirical examples of leadership for flourishing in a variety of educational contexts. This volume affirms that by fostering positive leadership, striving for well-being, and encouraging flourishing for all, significant benefits and new potentials will be felt throughout the learning communities. Grounded in theoretical approaches of positive leadership, positive psychology, and positive organizational scholarship, the accounts from K–12, post-secondary, and professional contexts explore the impacts and influences of leadership at all levels of education. Editors and chapter authors describe their research findings and first-hand experiences of supporting educators and school leaders in learning how to grow their agentic role for fostering well-being among all members of the community. The book is divided into three sections: stories of school-level flourishing, stories of personal professional flourishing, and stories of the impacts and influences of positive leadership in various educational contexts. Engaging and practical, this book encourages readers to reflect on the topics through discussion questions and to apply the learning to their own educational and organizational settings. This positively oriented volume will be invaluable for students of educational leadership, education administration, and organizational studies in education, in North America and beyond. FEATURES: - Chapters include pedagogical features such as concluding thoughts and discussion questions that bridge K–12 and higher education and reflect on education as a whole - Offers an approach to educational leadership that emphasizes the well-being of both educators and students - Features the voices of academics and school leaders from across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia

'An Aims-based Curriculum' spells out a groundbreaking alternative curriculum based not on subjects, but on what schools should be for. It argues that aims are not to be seen as high-sounding principles that can be easily ignored: they are the lifeblood of everything a school does, equipping learners to lead personally fulfilling lives.

Teachers at all levels of education will find this book practical and inspiring as they read how other educators have engaged with challenges that reveal different dimensions of gratitude, and how some have discovered its relevance in gaining greater resilience, improved relationships and increased student engagement. In the first comprehensive text ever written that is solely dedicated to the specific relevance of gratitude to the teaching and learning process, Dr Howells pioneers an approach that accounts for both dilemmas and possibilities of gratitude in the midst of teachers’ busy and stressful lives. She takes a contemporary and philosophical view of the notion of gratitude and goes beyond its conceptualisation simply from a religious or positive psychology framework. Exploring real situations with teachers, school leaders, students, parents, academics and pre-service teachers - Gratitude In Education: A Radical View examines many of the complexities encountered when gratitude is applied in a variety of secular educational environments.

"The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."--Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine" This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."--James Tanton, Global Math Project For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires--such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love--and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can--and must--be open to all.

Your essential guide to wellbeing in education. Despite many school leaders and teaching and non-teaching staff working hard to support children’s and their own wellbeing, more needs to be done. This book provides you with the necessary tools and strategies to navigate your way through the changing educational landscape and shape the schools of the future. Written by a diverse range of experts in the field, it explores how all school staff can support their own, their colleagues’ and their students’ wellbeing, how leaders can lead well and be well, and the importance of relationships within the entire school community to promote personal, academic and professional flourishing. This book will make you think and take you out of your comfort zone. It will inspire discussions and support you - whatever your role in school is - to bring positive change to school policy and culture. Kimberley Evans is an experience teacher and founder of Nourish the Workplace. Thérèse Hoyle is an education consultant, leadership coach and trainer. Frederika Roberts is a Positive Education advocate and former teacher. Bukky Yusuf is a senior leader, science teacher and consultant.

Far from offering a thin patina of "niceness" spread over standard educational philosophy, Steven Loomis and Paul Spears set forth a vigorous Christian philosophy of education that seeks to transform the practice of education. Beginning with a robust view of human nature, they build a case for a decidedly Christian view of education that still rightfully takes its place within the marketplace of public education.