Earlier this week I was asked to write a very brief stump speech for positive education. I’ve never written a stump speech. . . and mostly feel good about that. For this stump speech, I decided to stick with very basic facts or tendencies associated with positive psychology and positive education.
Here’s a hastily written first draft. Feel free to comment and make recommendations as you like.
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Positive education, as we define it at the University of Montana, is based on three essential psychological truths (or tendencies).
Most people are naturally compelled to focus on the negative, as captured by the question: “What’s wrong with you?”
The things and experiences that we pay attention to, will grow.
We are better at growing strengths than we are at getting rid of problems or symptoms.
These truths explain why current approaches to education unintentionally grow negative emotions and symptoms like anxiety, depression, and trauma. These truths also explain why we need to train all educators, counselors, and students to overcome their tendency to over-focus on the negative, and instead systematically focus on growing student, teacher, and administrator strengths, skills, resources, and virtues.
Positive education is the best path forward for education in Montana and beyond.
[I love the preceding photo because I’m doing a workshop on suicide in Billings, Montana, and despite the content, the participants are clearly having a good time]
Sometimes people ask me if I have presentations coming up. Other times they ask me about recent presentations. For reasons related to my own inability to be more organized and behave responsibly, I haven’t been very good at inserting “upcoming events” into my schedule, or at sharing links with readers about recent content that’s available online. Today’s post is my effort to address my irresponsibility.
September 11, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long ONLINE workshop, Conducting Parenting Consultations on behalf of Families First. Missoula, MT. Here are the ppts for the Parenting Consultation workshop:
September 26, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long IN-PERSON workshop, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling on behalf of Families First. Missoula, MT.
October 10, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long IN-PERSON workshop, Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment and Treatment on behalf of Tribal Health, Ronan, MT.
October 24, 2024 – JSF did an on-air guest interview on Evidence-Based Happiness for Teachers on a South Korean radio station. https://youtu.be/xYdJOInpAkE
November 6, 2024 – JSF presented on Let’s Pursue Happiness . . . Together (with our children) to the Washington Middle School Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
November 7, 2024 – JSF presented IN-PERSON on Why We Should Be in Pursuit of Eudaimonia (Not “Happiness”) for the University of Montana Alumni Association. Missoula, MT.
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS
November 13 – JSF is presenting Let’s Pursue Happiness Together [In our schools . . . with our teachers . . . and for our children]ONLINE to the Montana Office of Public Instruction Montana Student Wellness Advisory Committee.
November 14 – JSF is presenting Happiness and You: Methods for Managing Your MoodsIN PERSON at the annual statewide Future Farmers of America (FFA) conference at MSU in Bozeman, MT.
December 4 – JSF is presenting a one-hour workshop on Strengths-Based Integrating Strengths-Based and Traditional (Medical Model) Approaches to Suicide AssessmentONLINE to the Professional Counseling Association of Montana. Link unavailable for now.
December 6 John Sommers-Flanagan is presenting an all-day ONLINE workshop for mental health professionals titled, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, on behalf of the Vermont Psychological Association. Info is here: https://twinstates.ce21.com/speaker/john-sommersflanagan-2295709
January 10 – JSF is doing a 2-hour ONLINE workshop titled, Strategies for Integrating Traditional and Strengths-Based Approaches to Suicide, through the Cognitive Behavior Institute. You can register here for $25.00: https://www.pathlms.com/cbi/courses/77936#
Last week I had my Andy Warholian 15 minutes of fame in South Korea. Actually, it was only 12 minutes and 27 seconds, and as some historians note, Andy Warhol may have never actually said the 15 min of fame thing. But, pushing the silly details aside, the truth is: I got over 12 minutes of fame on a South Korean radio station! “How cool is that?”
My answer is, “Very cool,” partly because I was on a very cool English-speaking South Korean radio station and radio show: The Morning Wave in Busan (BeFM 90.5). Before I went “live” on the air, I listened to Kathryn Bang, the radio host, interviewing someone about college students selling their ADHD meds and voyeurism and some singing/dancing and a Bruno Mars song that’s popular in South Korea. Wow. That was an amazing line-up.
If you’re interested, The Morning Wave has a recorded video of my appearance. The focus of the interview was our “Happiness for Educators” course. I got the gig because the radio station tracks The Conversation, where I had a publication pop back on October 11.
Here’s the link to the YouTube video.
Just in case the link doesn’t load to the right moment in the show, the interview with me starts at 1:27:50 and ends at 1:40:17 . . . although the whole show is worth a listen/viewing!
This past week I spent four days at West Creek Ranch, where I was forced to eat gourmet food, do sunrise yoga, experience a ropes course (briefly becoming a “flying squirrel”), watch a reflective horse session, dance away one night, hike in the beautiful Paradise Valley, and hang out, converse, and learn from about 25 very smart/cool/fancy people. Yes, it was a painful and grueling experience—which I did not deserve—but of which I happily partook.
On the first morning, I provided a brief presentation to the group on the concept of belonging, from the perspective of the Montana Happiness Project. Despite having shamefully forgotten to take off my socks during the sunrise morning yoga session, and having anxiety about whether or not I belonged with this incredible group of people, they let me belong. They also laughed at all the right moments during my initial mini-comedy routine, and then engaged completely in a serious reflective activity involving them sharing their eudaimonic belongingness sweet-spots with each other.
If you don’t know what YOUR eudaimonic belongingness sweet-spot is, you’re not alone (because hardly anyone knows what I mean by that particular jumble of words). That’s because, as a university professor, I took the liberty of making that phrase up, while at the same time, noting that it’s derived from some old Aristotelean writings. Yes, that’s what university professors do. Here’s the definition that I half stole and half made up.
That place where the flowering of your greatest (and unique) virtues, gifts, skills, talents, and resources intersect (over time) with the needs of the world [or your community or family].
I hope you take a moment to reflect on that definition and how it is manifest in who you are, and how you are in your relationships with others. If you’re reading this blog post, I suspect that you’re a conscious and sentient entity who makes a positive difference in the lives of others in ways that are uniquely you. Because we can’t and don’t always see ourselves as others see us, in our University of Montana Happiness course, we have an assignment called the Natural Talent Interview designed to help you gain perspective on your own distinct and distinctive positive qualities. You can find info on the Natural Talent Interview here: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2023/12/26/what-do-you-think-of-me/
And my West Creek presentation powerpoint slides (all nine of them) are here:
You may have missed the main point of this blog post—which would be easy because I’m writing like a semi-sarcastic and erudite runaway loose association train that’s so busy whistling that it can’t make a point. My main point is GRATITUDE. Big, vast, and immense gratitude. Gratitude for the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation (AMBFF) and our massively helpful program officers. Gratitude for our retreat facilitators. Gratitude for the staff at West Creek Ranch. Gratitude for the presence of everyone at the gathering. And gratitude for the therapeutic feelings of belonging I had the luxury of ruminating on all week. My experience was so good that I’m still savoring it like whatever you think might be worth savoring and then end up savoring even more than you expected.
Thank you AMBFF and Arthur Blank for your unrelenting generosity and laser-focus on how we can come together as community and make the world a better place.
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*Note: At the Montana Happiness Project, we do not support toxic positivity. What I mean by that is: (a) no one should ever tell anyone else to cheer up (that’s just offensive and emotionally dismissive), and (b) although we reap benefits from shifting our thinking and emotions in positive directions, we also reap similar benefits from writing and talking about trauma, life challenges, and social injustice. As humans, we are walking dialectics, meaning we grow from exploring the negative as well as the positive in life. We are multitudes, simultaneously learning and growing in many directions.
Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Title of Course
Evidence-Based Happiness for Teachers
What prompted the idea for the course?
I was discouraged. For nearly three decades, as a clinical psychologist, I trained mental health professionals on suicide assessment. The work was good but difficult.
I consulted my wife, Rita, who also happens to be my favorite clinical psychologist. We decided to explore the science of happiness. Together, we established the Montana Happiness Project and began offering evidence-based happiness workshops to complement our suicide prevention work.
In 2021, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, through the University of Montana, awarded us a US$150,000 grant to support the state’s K-12 public school teachers, counselors and staff. We’re using the funds to offer these educators low-cost, online graduate courses on happiness. In spring 2023, the foundation awarded us another $150,000 so we could extend the program through December 2025.
What does the course explore?
Using the word “happiness” can be off-putting. Sometimes, people associate happiness with recommendations to just smile, cheer up and suppress negative emotions – which can lead to toxic positivity.
As mental health professionals, my wife and I reject that definition. Instead, we embrace Aristotle’s concept of “eudaimonic happiness”: the daily pursuit of meaning, mutually supportive relationships and becoming the best possible version of yourself.
The heart of the course is an academic, personal and experiential exploration of evidence-based positive psychology interventions. These are intentional practices that can improve mood, optimism, relationships and physical wellness and offer a sense of purpose. Examples include gratitude, acts of kindness, savoring, mindfulness, mood music, practicing forgiveness and journaling about your best possible future self.
Students are required to implement at least 10 of 14 positive psychology interventions, and then to talk and write about their experiences on implementing them.
The lesson on sleep is especially powerful for educators. A review of 33 studies from 15 countries reported that 36% to 61% of K-12 teachers suffered from insomnia. Although the rates varied across studies, sleep problems were generally worse when teachers were exposed to classroom violence, had low job satisfaction and were experiencing depressive symptoms.
The sleep lesson includes, along with sleep hygiene strategies, a happiness practice and insomnia intervention called Three Good Things, developed by the renowned positive psychologist Martin Seligman.
I describe the technique, in Seligman’s words: “Write down, for one week, before you go to sleep, three things that went well for you during the day, and then reflect on why they went well.”
Next, I make light of the concept: “I’ve always thought Three Good Things was hokey, simplistic and silly.” I show a video of Seligman saying, “I don’t need to recommend beyond a week, typically … because when you do this, you find you like it so much, most people just keep doing it.” At that point, I roll my eyes and say, “Maybe.”
Then I share that I often awakened for years at 4 a.m. with terribly dark thoughts. Then – funny thing – I tried using Three Good Things in the middle of the night. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a vast improvement over lying helplessly in bed while negative thoughts pummeled me.
The Three Good Things lesson is emblematic of how we encourage teachers in our course – using science, playful cynicism and an open and experimental mindset to apply the evidence-based happiness practices in ways that work for them.
I also encourage students to understand that the strategies I offer are not universally effective. What works for others may not work for them, which is why they should experiment with many different approaches.
What will the course prepare students to do?
The educators leave the course with a written lesson plan they can implement at their school, if they wish. As they deepen their happiness practice, they can also share it with other teachers, their students and their families.
Over the past 16 months, we’ve taught this course to 156 K-12 educators and other school personnel. In a not-yet-published survey that we carried out, more than 30% of the participants scored as clinically depressed prior to starting the class, compared with just under 13% immediately after the class.
The educators also reported overall better health after taking the class. Along with improved sleep, they took fewer sick days, experienced fewer headaches and reported reductions in cold, flu and stomach symptoms.
As resources allow, we plan to tailor these courses to other people with high-stress jobs. Already, we are receiving requests from police officers, health care providers, veterinarians and construction workers.
Tomorrow morning, three counseling interns and I will hit the road for Ronan, where we’ll spend the day with the staff of CSKT Tribal Health. We are honored and humbled to engage in a conversation about how to make the usual medical model approach to suicide be more culturally sensitive and explicitly collaborative.
Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, October 2) I have the honor and privilege of being the keynote speaker for Maryland’s 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. So far, everyone I’ve met associated with this conference is amazing. I suspect tomorrow will be filled with excellent presentations and fabulous people who are in the business of mental health and saving lives.
I hope I can do justice to my role in this very cool conference.
Why Do We Need a Strengths-Based Approach to Suicide Assessment and Treatment?
Imagine this: You’re living in a world that seems like it would just as soon forget you exist. Maybe your skin color is different than the dominant people who hold power. Maybe you have a disability. Whatever the case, the message you hear from the culture is that you’re not important and not worthy. You feel oppressed, marginalized, unsupported, and as if much of society would just as soon have you become invisible or go away.
In response, you intermittently feel depressed and suicidal. Then, when you enter the office of a health or mental health professional, the professional asks you about depression and suicide. Even if the professional is well-intended, judgment leaks through. If you admit to feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts, you’ll get a diagnosis that implies you’re to blame for having depressing and suicidal thoughts.
The medical model overfocuses on trying to determine: “Are you suicidal?” The medical model is also based on the assumption that the presence of suicidality indicates there’s something seriously wrong with you. But if we’re working with someone who has been or is currently being marginalized, a rational response from the patient might be:
“As it turns out, I’ve internalized systemic and intergenerational racism, sexism, ableism, and other dehumanizing messages from society. I’ve been devalued for so long and so often that now, I’ve internalized societal messages: I devalue myself and wonder if life is worth living. And now, you’re blaming me with a label that implies I’m the problem!”
No wonder most people who are feeling suicidal don’t bother telling their health professionals.
When I think of this preceding scenario, I want to add profanity into my response, so I can adequately convey that it’s completely unjust to BLAME patients for absorbing repeated negative messages about people who look like or sound like or act like them. WTH else do you think should happen?
This is why we need to integrate strengths-based principles into traditional suicide assessment and prevention models. Of course, we shouldn’t use strengths-based ideas in ways that are toxically positive. We ALWAYS need to start by coming alongside and feeling with our patients and clients. As it turns out, if we do a good job of coming alongside patients/clients who are in emotional pain, natural opportunities for focus on strengths and resources, including cultural, racial, sexual, and other identities that give the person meaning.
I’m reminded of an interview I did with an Alaskan Native person from the Yupik tribe. She talked at length about her depression, about feeling like a zombie, and past and current suicidal thoughts. Eventually, I inquired: “What’s happening when you’re not having thoughts about suicide?” She seemed surprised. Then she said, “I’d be singing or writing poetry.” I instantly had a sense that expressing herself held meaning for her. In particular, her singing Native songs and contemporary pop songs became important in our collaborative efforts to build her a safety plan.
This coming Wednesday morning I have the honor of presenting as the keynote speaker for the Maryland Department of Health 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. During this keynote, I’ll share more ideas about why a strengths-based model is a good fit when working with diverse clients who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and impulses.
With all that said, here’s the title and abstract of my upcoming presentation.
Strengths-Based Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention with Diverse Populations
Traditional suicide assessment tends to be a top-down information-gathering process wherein healthcare or prevention professionals use questionnaires and clinical interviews to determine patient or client suicide risk. This approach may not be the best fit for people from populations with historical trauma, or for people who continue to experience oppression or marginalization. In this presentation, John Sommers-Flanagan will review principles of a strengths-based approach to suicide prevention, assessment, and treatment. He will also discuss how to be more sensitive, empowering, collaborative, and how to leverage cultural strengths when working with people who are potentially suicidal. You will learn at least three practical strengths-based strategies for initiating conversations about suicide, conducting culturally-sensitive assessments, and implementing suicide interventions—that you can immediately use in your prevention work.
I’ve had several requests for more details about our grant-supported, upcoming fall 2024 version of the “Happiness for Teachers” course, including, the all-important question: How much time will this take?? Here are the details.
Grading Options
Because we want to support teachers, our approach to grading is flexible. Teachers can select from one of three grading options.
Teachers can receive 3 graduate credits from the University of Montana – graded using a Credit/No Credit system. That means you need to complete enough course assignments to obtain 70% (you can do more). Then you will pass the course and receive the credits. Even if you get an NCR in the course, you can qualify for a pro-rated number of OPI credits based on your percentage completion.
Teachers can receive 3 graduate credits from the University of Montana – graded using a traditional “letter” grading system. Some school districts require a letter grade to count the course toward your payscale.
You can receive up to 48 OPI credits. This option is especially useful if you find you’re unable to complete at least 70% of the assignments. You can receive a pro-rated total of OPI hours . . . depending on how many hours of the course you complete.
How Much Work will the Course Be?
This is a graduate-level course, and so there’s a significant workload. If you can take the course for credit/no credit (see above), then you only need to obtain 70%, which makes the workload lighter.
At the ½ point in the course, we will ask all participants to inform us how they want to take the course (for credit/no credit; for a letter grade; for OPI hours). If you get ½ way through the course and you think you’re not going to pass (or get the grade you want), then you can take it for OPI hours. In the end, even if you get an NCR in the course, you can still qualify for a prorated number of OPI hours.
To complete the whole course, teachers need to complete the following assignments:
Initial and Final Happiness Assessments (20 points each; 40 points total): During the first and final days of class you’ll be given a link to a happiness assessment packet via Qualtrics. We’re collecting this data to support the grant we have that enabled us to offer you this course at a steep discount.
Active Learning Assignments (complete 10 of the 14 options available; 10 points each; 100 total points): These are short assignments designed to get you in the habit of incorporating happiness-related activities into your life. These assignments are graded pass (10 points) or not pass (0 points). To get your 10 points you need to complete the bare minimum of a thoughtful response.
Weekly Discussion Board Postings and Comments (30 posts; total 60 points): We want you to engage with each other on how you might apply what you’re learning in this course. To encourage this, you’re assigned to make two posts each week (30 total posts). We’d like you to make one post about the weekly course content (lectures and other assigned content) and one post commenting on the post of someone else.
Development of One Educational Lesson Plan (3-5 pages; 40 points): Pick a topic from class (e.g., savoring, gratitude, acts of kindness, etc.) and then write a lesson plan that you could potentially use in your educational setting. You DO NOT need to implement these lesson plans; the assignment is only to create them.
Live online or recorded final pub quiz (30 points, plus prizes): During the last Unit of class John Sommers-Flanagan will hold a live and synchronous open pub-style happiness trivia quiz. If you participate live you can win prizes. Whether you participate live or watch the recording, you can earn 30 points by turning in the answers to the 30 happiness trivia questions.
Substitute (or Extra) Credit (40 points): You can engage in 5 or more sessions of individual counseling with a Master’s student at the University of Montana. You can use these points to substitute for another assignment, or as extra credit.
How Much Time will This Course Take?
The video-recorded lecture component of the course takes about 45 hours to view.
If you complete the whole course, assignments outside of class will take approximately an additional 100 hours.
For the Fall, 2024 version of the course, there will be 15 weeks—although you’ll be working at your own pace. Assuming you worked at an even pace over the 15 weeks, anticipating about 10 hours a week for the course is a reasonable estimate.
Our Goals
We want to support teachers because we view them as unappreciated, underpaid, and highly stressed by the demands of their jobs. We have three objectives:
Offer a high quality and low-cost course to Montana teachers and other school personnel. The fee is $195 for 3-credits.
Focus the course content on emotional wellness—teachers can apply this content to themselves, and possibly also apply it in their classrooms.
By offering a 3-credit graduate course through the University of Montana, teachers may qualify for a salary bump.
I know this saying dates me, but sometimes I feel like a broken record. However, as I’ve said before (and I’ll say it again), redundancy works.
In this post, I’m sending out yet another call for Montana educators to register for our bargain-priced “Happiness for Teachers” course, offered through the University of Montana’s UMOnline program.
I’ve said it before: We’ve had over 150 educators complete the course and the outcomes have been rather stunningly positive. I could promote this like an advertisement:
“If you want to be less depressed, more hopeful, have better physical health (including better sleep), and experience greater hope and mindfulness . . . you should consider taking this course!”
The cost is $195 for 3 U of Montana graduate credits. Here’s the link to register:
John Sommers-Flanagan 