Wellbeing Literacy: The Missing Link in Positive Education

Abstract

A range of definitions, critiques and debates surround positive education. One critique includes the claim that it is neither a unique nor new endeavour. How is positive education different from other mental health promotion programs (e.g. MindMatters, CASEL, World Health Organisation Health Promoting Schools)? How is positive education different from social and emotional learning (Durlak JA, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB, Child Dev 82:405–432, 2011)? Is positive education simply positive psychology applied in education or is it a union with pedagogy (Oades LG, Mossman L, The science of wellbeing and positive psychology. In: Slade M, Oades LG, Jarden A (eds) Wellbeing, recovery and mental health. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 7–23, 2017; Slemp GR, Slemp GR, Chin T-C, Kern ML, Siokou C, Loton D, Oades LG, Vella-Brodrick D, Waters L, Waters L, Positive education in Australia: practice, measurement, and future directions. In: Frydenberg E et al (eds) Social and emotional learning in Australia and the Asia Pacific. Springer Nature, Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-3394-0_6, 2017; Waters L, Sun J, Rusk R, Cotton A, Arch A, Positive education: visible wellbeing and positive functioning in students. In: Slade M, Oades LG, Jarden A (eds) Wellbeing, recovery and mental health. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017)? In understanding the debates surrounding positive education, it is also useful to understand the broader debates within positive psychology which influences positive education (Kristjánsson K, Virtues and vices in positive psychology: a philosophical critique. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013). In Pawelski’s (J Posit Psychol 11:339–356, 2016a; J Posit Psychol 11:357–365, 2016b) papers on defining the ‘positive’ in positive psychology he draws a useful distinction between the topography (topic or outcome), the target population and the processes of positive psychology. For example, are the outcomes, the population and the processes or constructs used positive? This leads to the question of whether positive education could or should be understood in a similar way. Using this framework applied to positive education will likely lead us to think of wellbeing as the topology/outcome of positive education, students (and sometimes teachers) as the target population with an array of processes (e.g. strengths, gratitude etc.) used in the educational context. Claims as to how positive education is different to existing approaches will likely then lead to discussions of how it is specific to school contexts, takes a whole of school approach (Kern ML, Park G, Eichstaedt JC, Schwartz HA, Sap M, Smith LK, Ungar LH, Psychol Methods 21:507–525. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/met0000091, 2016) or that it is more positive or wellbeing focused than previous mental health approaches. Whilst these debates are conceptually important, from a utilitarian perspective a broader question is how do we improve the wellbeing of the population, in this case through enabling learning about wellbeing?