Improving the Wellbeing of Teachers Using the PERMA Framework of Wellbeing
“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.” Brad Henry
“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” Solomon Ortiz
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” Albert Einstein
If the quotes above are anything to go by, teachers are indeed the backbone of our societies. Teachers are very integral not only to the academic success and well-being of students but are also very important in setting a foundation for lifelong success. No longer are teachers dispensers of information instead, their roles and responsibilities…show more content… (Boniwell, Osin, & Martinez, 2015; Fleuret & Atkinson, 2007).
Consequently, wellbeing has become the main focus of the positive psychology movement (Boniwell, Osin, & Martinez, 2015; Fleuret & Atkinson, 2007), the subject of a large body of empirical research (Wren-Lewis, 2014; Wright, 2014) and the focus of policy makers (Wren-Lewis, 2014,). Despite this recent rise in interest however, the study of well-being has a long history dating from ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Aristippus and Epicurus (Diener, Shigehiro, & Lucas, 2009; Henderson & Knight, 2012, Lambert, Passmore, & Holder, 2015; Wright, 2014.) For example, ideas from a number of related field including different areas of psychology has strongly influenced the scientific study of well-being and its origins (Lambert, Passmore, & Holder, 2015). While it is outside of the scope of this paper to discuss all the theories…show more content… Hedonic well-being neglects functioning and other important sources of wellbeing as it mainly focuses on feelings while eudaimonic theories stresses functioning at the expense of how individual actually feels about their lives (Lambert, Passmore, & Holder, 2015.) As such it is recommended that when measuring and examining wellbeing both approaches should be used (Henderson & Knight, 2012; Huta & Ryan,