Positive Education

Positive education is an approach to education that draws on positive psychology's emphasis of individual strengths and personal motivation to promote learning. Unlike traditional school approaches in which teachers attempt to tailor their material to a mythical "average" student, and move the class altogether using the material through one teaching and testing style, positive schooling teachers use techniques that focus on the well-being of individual students. Teachers use methods such as developing tailored goals for each student to engender learning and working with them to develop the plans and motivation to reach their goals. Rather than pushing students to achieve at a set grade level, seen through the emphasis of standardized testing, this approach attempts to customize learning goals to individual students' levels. Instead of setting students to compete against one another, learning is viewed as a cooperative process where teachers learn to respect their students and each student's input is valued.