How much would you devote to an activity that decreases your anxiety, improves your sleep, and makes you happier? Practicing mindfulness has many physical and emotional benefits. To promote a more …
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What do you do with the chronically pessimistic student? You know, the one that gets a bad grade on a minor quiz and automatically believes that they will fail the course, that this will undermine everything they want to …
Read moreOctober. It’s one of the hardest months for teachers. You’re lucky to get a single day off and the honeymoon period from the beginning of the year, where students were on their best behavior, has ended. Kids are testing your …
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Neuroscience and knowledge about the brain have impacted nearly every field. From business to healthcare, sports to education, neuroscience gives us a lens to understand why we are the way we are. But what’s perhaps more important is that neuroscience …
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Appreciative inquiry asks a simple question, “How can we be better?” In a sense, this question is all that really matters. Children go to school to be better people, people go to work to build better lives, and we’re all …
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The Dalai Lama recently challenged schools around the world to teach a subject that isn’t traditionally considered part of an academic curriculum. Not coding, not robotics, but kindness. Yes, kindness can be taught.
Most educators shudder at the idea of …
Every teacher has had one – the one class that you dread, the one where classroom management seems more important than instruction itself. Maybe there are one or two students who just really know how to push your buttons. Maybe …
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Positive education is a direct challenge to traditional education. Schools around the world are implementing it into classrooms, catalyzing a shift in their culture that boosts achievement, reduces stress, and increases happiness of both teachers and students.
Instead of encouraging …
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As teachers, most of us know what it means to differentiate instruction. By providing student choice from assignments at tiered levels of difficulty, we can boost engagement and better serve learners across a spectrum of ability. But, why should they …
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Have How many times have you ever seen a student give up after one or two tries on a tough problem? We all face obstacles to success: lack of confidence, negative self-talk, or trauma, for example. Students that persevere, though, …
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Besides their families, students spend a majority of their time with their teachers and classmates. Because of this, school is the most important source of social emotional learning (SEL) in a child’s education.
Whether or not it’s explicitly taught, social …
Ever heard of appreciative inquiry? While it may sound like a gratitude exercise, it’s actually a collaborative, mindfulness-driven process of improving an organization. And appreciation does play a big part; if appreciative inquiry is done well, you and your …
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The beginning of the school year can be a hectic time. Mindfulness is probably the last thing on your mind. Students are getting shuffled from one class to another, as a teacher, you don’t know your students’ names yet, and …
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Classroom decoration is one of the most commonly neglected steps in the successful preparation for a new school year. I’ve found that teachers who really understand how to decorate and design their classrooms can use them to keep students calm, …
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We recently published another blog on Wholebeing Institute discussing the importance of summer for teachers’ cultivation of resilience. We highly recommend it for anyone looking for ways to recharge on their time off, not just teachers. Check out the article …
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In our fast paced world that values results far more than emotional states, it can be easy to lose focus on the present moment. We are preoccupied with the future while we dwell on the past, rushing through our daily …
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To start off our discussion on relationships, let’s start with one relationship in particular: your relationship with meditation and mindfulness. What do you see when you picture meditation? Do you see a solitary yogi on a cushion, eyes closed, thumb …
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Do you treat yourself with as much compassion as others? As a teacher, do you ever find yourself beating yourself up? What about your students? Are they sometimes their own worst critics? Taking risks and struggling are just as much …
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Researchers have recently uncovered an extremely virulent contagion. It’s so contagious that just being in the same neighborhood with someone who has it can infect you. I’m talking, of course, about happiness.
A Harvard study showed that physical proximity is …
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This post originally appeared on the Wholebeing Institute. Click here to see the whole article.
Click above to see Mary Sanders’s thought piece on the importance of positive psychology, growth mindset, and concrete tools that can be used to …
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What do students need to achieve? How is achievement dependent on students needs being met? In 1970, Albert Maslow published Motivation and Personality, a text that would greatly influence his contemporaries in the field of psychology. In his book, …
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Does it ever seem like positive experiences register as a brief spike in your emotional life, but negative ones are more resilient than you, just lingering and dragging you down? Low resilience is a very common experience, and it is …
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March 20th marked the International day of happiness, but people around the world will be practicing happiness exercises all week. Happiness doesn’t just make you feel good, it also increases longevity, leads to higher income, and makes you more …
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A flipped classroom is a pedagogical curriculum model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed. Students view short videos and articles from the curriculum at home before class, while in-class time is devoted to …
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Is your goal in life to be happier? Do parents want happiness for their children? Do teachers want happier classrooms for both themselves and their students?
Of course, the answer to all of these questions is yes. But, surprisingly, our …
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Esta semana, presentamos un blog español para nuestros amigos de los paises Latino Americanos sobre la experencia del Colegio Gimnasio Moderno y su modleo de Educación Positiva. Es escrito por Juan Sebastián Hoyos Montes, Vicerrector del Colegio Gimnasio Moderno.
This …
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As contemporary educators, we understand that a student’s growth and growth mindset are more important than their scores. We’ve been taught to praise effort over talent. However, fostering a growth mindset in students isn’t as simple as just telling them …
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Despite growing social acceptance and scientific evidence showing the benefits of mindfulness, many are still resistant to the idea meditation, especially when it’s being taught to their children. In order to be successful when integrating a mindfulness program into your …
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I was getting ready to teach my next professional development on gratitude and happiness. To prepare, I was happily reviewing some of my favorite books on positive psychology, when I opened Sonja Lyubomirsky’s book, “The How of Happiness”.
In this …
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Here at Aviva, we owe a lot to a lot of brilliant scholars.
Positive psychology has come a long way since its beginnings after World War II when researchers studied the minority of veterans who were not as adversely affected …
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In any job, it’s easy to measure your happiness by the day’s proximity to the weekend.
Us teachers at Aviva know that this is especially true in a school. But what if that craving for two days of freedom was …
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Before I became a teacher, I assumed that they had no effect on the culture of the classroom or the way students behaved in their class. Either teachers got lucky with motivated, compassionate group of kids or they just happened …
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All of us know that we have unique strengths and weaknesses, but have you ever actually documented yours? This is an incredibly important exercise that will answer questions like “who are you?” “What do you stand for?” and “What are …
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After spending two years as a biology teacher in one of the lowest performing high schools in California, I know that nothing can fully prepare you to lead a classroom. You must be thrown into the deep end and thrash …
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