Have your learners lost the joy of learning? Is this impacting on their ability to successfully engage with their education? Have your teachers lost the joy of teaching? Is this impacting on their interactions in the classroom?
Joy is a fundamental emotion to human existence. Joy is a positive emotion we experience in response to a positive event, situation or circumstance. Joy is considered by many as the experiences of pleasure, delight and satisfaction. Joy is not the same as happiness which has many aspects to it and experiencing joy could well be a contributing factor to happiness. Classrooms can be an environment that creates discomfort, anxiety, challenge and uncertainty for many learners and by infusing joyful learning leaners build more positive, longer lasting learning outcomes.
Teaching and learning in the current climate are very different than they were twenty years ago. Teachers feel the pressure of the profession with student behaviour, discipline and parent-teacher relationships being identified as sources of stress for teachers. The World Health Organisation (2023) reported that 20% of adolescents experience mental health problems in any given year, with the most common being depression and anxiety. This is affecting their behaviour, their attendance and their ability to effectively engage in their education. The Education and Training Foundation (2022) reported that 25% of teachers leave the sector within their first year of teaching, 50% leave within their first three years and 75% leave within 10 years. The reasons cited by teachers for this included learner behaviour, pressure and stress and the impact on their own mental health, parental complaints and inadequate CPD. The Office for National Statistics (2024) reported that last year there were 946,000 young people aged 16-24 who were NEET. This is an increase of approximately 75000 than in 2023. With these statistics we have to ask ourselves ‘what is going wrong’ and ‘what can we do about it?’ I don’t have a single solution, but I can offer research-based evidence that can become part of the solution.
Supporting teachers to foster joy in the classroom has the real potential to improve student behaviour, reduce the need for discipline and improve parent-teacher relationships and in turn alleviate the stress that your teachers experience. The current pressure on teachers is also combined with the fact that adolescents are in a difficult transition in their lives in a current culture of excessive social media use, the pressures of education and parental expectations, and cost-of-living issues which are contributing to a current mental health crisis among our young people. We need to make the classroom a place children, young people and teachers enjoy being and want to be. The situation needs to be better to improve educational outcomes across the country.
I have been a teacher for 25 years and have continually studied educational psychology during this time, accumulating in a PhD exploring teaching practices that are conducive to supporting the positive emotions of learners. I have taught across all age ranges and settings including, primary and secondary schools, colleges, adult education and HE. My most recent role is training new teachers in the FE sector. My PhD research focused on learners in post-compulsory education as this is a significantly under researched sector of education and where learners are at a vulnerable time in their lives when considering their emotional well-being. My research concluded teaching practices that can be employed in any classroom the teacher and have the real potential to improve experiences of positive emotions and bring joy to the classroom.
I can help you change the climate of your classrooms to bring back the magic of teaching and the joy of teaching and learning. With teacher stress, poor mental health in children and young people, and school refusal all on the increase, I can support you and your teachers be part of the solution. In an attempt to be part of the solution to this growing concern, my research explored the theories of positive psychology and Seligman’s (2011) PERMA (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment) and the implementation of this theory within teaching practices. Seligman argued, through his extensive research as a psychologist and professor, that the five elements of PERMA were central to achieving positive emotional well-being. The findings from my research identified specific teaching practices that supported each area of the PERMA theory by identifying those conducive to learner positive emotion, learner engagement, the development of positive relationships and those that gave learners meaning to lesson content. It was concluded that in turn, this supported teachers to enjoy their lessons and learners to enjoy them more.
The teaching practices identified as being the most conducive to supporting positive emotional well-being of learners were as follows:
Teaching practices that were most effective at supporting positive emotions of learners:
• Greeting learners as they enter the room
• The teacher standing and moving around the room to teach
• Positive descriptive feedbackTeaching practices that were most effective at supporting the engagement of learners in lessons:
• The teacher standing and moving around the room to teach
• A range of activities and tasks
• Incorporating learners' interests and work experienceTeaching practices that were most effective at developing effective relationships with learners and between learners:
• Group activities
• Induction activities
• Think, pair, shareTeaching practices that were most effective at developing a sense of meaning for learners:
• Incorporating learners' interests and work experiences
• A range of activities and tasks
• Incorporating real world eventsTeaching practices that were most effective at developing learners’ sense of accomplishment:
• Positive descriptive praise
• Identifying and using character strengths
• Written feedback from the teacher.
When learners enjoy their lessons, they are more likely to attend, have better relationships with the teachers and their peers, and speak positively about their educational experiences with their parents (Preece, 2023). Begin to make these changes in your classrooms and together we can begin to bring back the joy!
Mary-Ann
References
Education and Training Foundation (ETF). (2022). Landmark research reveals motivations and challenges of FE and training professionals. Available: https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/news/landmark-research-reveals-motivations-and-challenges-of-fe-and-training-professionals/
Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2024). Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) UK: November 2024. Available: Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK - Office for National Statistics
Preece, M. A. (2023). Teaching practices that are conducive to supporting the positive emotional well-being of learners in post-compulsory education. Research in Post-Compulsory Education. 28(3), 390–417. DOI:10.1080/13596748.2023.2221117.
Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.