Next week, July 18-20, the Festival of Positive Education takes place in Dallas. This three day event is hosted by IPEN, the International Positive Education Network, and is intended for anyone interested in education who seeks to help create and apply a new kind of education that promotes both academic achievement and character virtue development. Jillian Darwish, Karen Graves, and Lynn Ochs will participate in a panel discussion about the impact of embedding character strengths and Social Emotional Learning.
In the run up to the conference you might enjoy this post on Personalized Learning: What or Who? written by Jillian Darwish for the IPEN blog last year. In this post the reader is invited to shift perspective:
Shift Perspective
For many reasons, from the radical focus on standardized testing to the extraordinary number of competing demands, professionals in many schools have adopted deficit-based thinking, i.e., what is “not right” with students. Of course, volumes of education research have told us that what we expect and focus on is likely what we will see. Making a commitment to see the individual, unique strengths of students and to encourage them to do the same for themselves and others, can radically change a learning culture to one that is highly positive, expanding potential for learning, relating and performance. Carol Dweck, PhD. said as much in her groundbreaking publication “Mindset,” encouraging adoption of a growth mindset in a shift away from fixed mindsets that are self-limiting. By noticing a student’s natural strengths we can then use that understanding to personalize the learning experience in the way that best suits each student.
Visit the IPEN website to learn more about the Festival or follow the #IPENFest16 hashtag for posts from the event itself next week.
