Chapter 3: Placing Wellbeing at the Heart of Education: Embracing Positive Psychology at Appleby College

As a body of thought and practices, Positive Psychology systematically examines the components of human happiness/wellbeing and human thriving/flourishing. Placing human flourishing at the heart of education means, as White (cited in Morris, 2015, p. 15) noted, the most important things should take priority:

In the late 2010s, Appleby College decided that students’ wellbeing should be its primary focus and embraced Positive Psychology to this end. In this chapter, we outline our school’s pathway towards adopting Positive Psychology as a guiding philosophy and means to placing wellbeing at the heart of education.

Appleby is a co-educational, independent boarding school located in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. At its founding in 1911, the school had an all-male student body of twenty-nine; by the early 1990s Appleby had become a grade 7-12 co-ed school, and by the early 2000s the school had a diverse student population of 760. Despite experiencing many changes over the years, the school’s mission remained preparing students to be positive leaders in their communities. Its approach to achieving this mission has consistently included focus on developing students’ scholastic abilities as well as key non-academic attributes such as honesty, humility, and service.