Talks Martin Seligman: What positive psychology can help you become

[Connie Weber]

"Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?"

[Daniel Kam]

I was very excited by this because he seemed to put an emphasis on strengths.

I am a huge proponent of the idea that we should use our strengths in education. A low mark in math and high marks in English may simply mean that a student needs to abandon higher level math, focus on improving and mastering lower level math (enough to help them through life) and focus on higher and more advanced levels of English. This might also mean learning math through the lens of English. The stuff that Marion Brady has been saying about the lack of unified goals in education might be applied here.

We need to seriously consider in our generation why math and English have so little to do with each other. They should, if they are both dealing with reality as we sit it in the world around us, affect us profoundly as human beings, but I think that curriculum needs to be designed in such a way that math is significant to students who love English as well as those who love math. There has to be a way to do this.

Strengths based education would encourage students to pursue whatever they enjoy. This moves them towards the type of happiness beyond the first "pleasure" level that Seligman talks about in his video.

[Kathryn L. Keene]

I have studied positive psychology for awhile now. Seligman is fantastic. If I could afford to, I would spend a year at the University of PA and get another Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). I believe it's the only program in the country. Google "positive psychology" or "Happiness 101" or Tal be Shahar's work at Harvard. Tal has his syllabus available online with his required readings, which are as new as Chris Peterson and as weathered as Nathaniel Branden. It gives one hope that it is possible to show kids a way to be happy and purposeful no matter what their circumstances...it's our duty...