The “happy classrooms” program: a spanish positive education initiative

The “happy classrooms” program: a spanish positive education initiative Formerly only accessible in Spanish

2015-02-16

By: Dr. Ricardo Arguís Rey

British translation available these days free of charge download at:

http://www.aulasfelices.org

Theoretical foundations

 The “Happy Classrooms” Program is really a recent positive education initiative launched in The country, created for students in Preschool, Secondary and primary Schools (children and youth aged 3 to 18 years of age), and centered on two fundamental areas: mindfulness and character strengths.

Mindfulness may be the first element of our program. There’s an growing quantity of research mentioning the results of mindfulness in educational settings (Meiklejohn et al., 2012 Arguís, 2014). We plan to help students be conscious and conscious as part of their daily schedule instead of only practicing mindfulness in isolated moments within the classroom. Thus, they can benefit from the positive things in existence and also to transform the negative ones to be able to achieve greater amounts of well-being.

In addition, mindfulness may be used along with another essential strategy: the cultivation of character strengths. Scientific study has proven the numerous benefits that range from integration of both mindfulness and character strengths (Niemiec, Rashid & Spinella, 2012 Niemiec, 2012 & 2014). You should underline that people distinguish two primary general approximations in this region, what we should call “restricted” versus “open” approaches. Restricted approaches concentrate on recognizing the type strengths that individuals already posses and finding uses of these existing strengths as a way of achieving a satisfying existence. In comparison, open approaches have a wider perspective, promoting not just peoples existing strengths, but the other 24 strengths they might develop. We made the decision to base our intervention around the entire VIA Classification, designing activities to boost the entire potential in our students based overall spectrum of character strengths.

 

Evolution of the program

 The first edition was printed on the web in October 2010, and the second was launched in November 2012, revised with a lot more activities for that classrooms. Nowadays, this is among the popular positive teaching programs in Spanish speaking countries, and among the couple of on the planet completely free of charge distribution. It’s achieved prevalent and worldwide recognition through the scientific community and education professionals. It’s been presented at many forums and occasions (Second World Congress on Positive Psychology, First Spanish Congress on Positive Psychology, Second Chilean Conference on Healthy Relationships and Happiness, and 2nd Worldwide Conference on Positive Psychology within the Czech Republic). It has additionally been incorporated like a reference guide in masters and doctorates levels.

Formerly only accessible in Spanish, this guide continues to be converted into British (December 2014), as well as in coming several weeks in france they translation is going to be also released. Its distribution is totally free. The authors allow its diffusion and reproduction, but always with non-commercial purposes and quoting the initial source.

 

Putting this program into practice: intervention options

You will find three primary intervention possibilities with this particular program: 1) global proposals, 2) specific proposals, and three) personalized plans. Global proposals constitute some general concepts which should permeate our teaching (teacher attitude, creating options for “flow”, methodological alterations in the classrooms, etc). Specific proposals contain 321 activities to build up mindfulness and character strengths. Individuals activities are addressed to any or all students like a group, therefore we have incorporated another strategy – personalized plans – to enable them to develop their specific and private profile of strengths. All individuals strategies and activities could be transported out inside the general school curriculum, specific subjects, or tutor periods in most educational levels.

 

Implementation of the program and early evidence about impact

Nowadays, there are other than 200 schools in The country and abroad (mainly in Spanish speaking countries) which are applying the program. To date, we’ve received very positive feedback from teachers, students and families. Additionally, you will find presently several ongoing investigations to empirically validate its usefulness. We’re nearly to write the very first results of the research, having a sample of 368 students in Secondary Education (aged 12-18). Our findings, following a rigorous SEM analysis, have proven a rise in:

Amounts of mindfulness

Emotional intelligence

Appreciation of social relationships

Decrease in perceived stress

However, we’re still within an initial phase in our investigations, so more research is required to support these and then findings.

 

Contact data:

Dr. Ricardo Arguís Rey

SATI Team –Positive Psychology put on Education.

The “happy classrooms” program: a spanish positive education initiative in The country, created for

Zaragoza (The country).

http://www.aulasfelices.org

 

More information: Based on the charitable spirit in our project, we provide the potential of collaborating with individuals thinking about the promotion of Positive Education, with no commercial interest, delivering lectures and workshops in British or Spanish (within our presentations abroad, we simply request our travel and accommodation expenses to become covered).

References

Arguís Rey, R. (2014). Mindfulness y educación: Aprendiendo a vivir disadvantage atención plena. Inside A. Cebolla, J. García & M. Demarzo, Mindfulness y ciencia (pp. 129–149). Madrid: Alianza.

Meiklejohn, J., Phillips, C., Freedman, M.L., Griffin, M.L., Biegel, G., Roach, A.,

Frank, J., Burke, C., Pinger, L., Soloway, G., Isberg, R., Sibinga, E., Grossman, L. & Saltzman, A. (2012). Integrating mindfulness training into K-12 education: fostering the resilience of students and teachers. Mindfulness. doi:10.1007/s12671-012-0094-5

Niemiec, R.M. (2012). Conscious living: Character strengths interventions as pathways for the 5 mindfulness trainings. Worldwide Journal of Wellbeing, 2(1), 22-33. doi:10.5502/ijw.v2i1.2

Niemiec, R.M. (2014). Mindfulness and character strengths. An operating guide to flourishing. Boston, MA: Hogrefe.

Niemiec, R.M., Rashid, T. & Spinella, M. (2012). Strong mindfulness: Integrating mindfulness and character strengths. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 34(3), 240- 253.

 

Resourse: http://ipositive-education.internet/the-happy-classrooms-program-a-spanish-positive-education-initiative/