There are some real heroes in the world of Wellbeing and one of them is Melbourne University’s Associate Professor in the Centre of Wellbeing Science, Aaron Jarden.
He has many insights into organisational wellbeing, but his paper “Introducing workplace wellbeing to organizations: The “Me, We, Us” (2016) model aligns with the current Education Departments Health and Wellbeing guiding principle 1. “Health and wellbeing is an individual and shared responsibility.”
The “Me, We, Us” strategy is distributing the responsibility amongst the stakeholders. At the employee level (Me), at group level (We), and at the organizational level (Us). Translated into the school environment, the individual educator (Me), the Year group (We) and the whole school (Us)
Given this piece of information, it makes sense that principals are not responsible for staff wellbeing (Me and We) but are responsible for creating and leading an environment that allows staff to thrive if they choose to do so.
One space that I believe is neglected due to time constraints is celebration. We spend a lot of time in the fixing and improving genre, but how much time in recognising what we are already doing well?
Martin Seligman’s Positive Psychology pillars, Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationship, Meaning and Achievement are integral to wellbeing and flourishing. Achievement is the recognition of application to create a desirable outcome. Educators do this every day of the week in small increments accumulating into massive progress. It is those small increments that require celebration as much as the massive progress.
Using Aaron Jarden’s model the challenge is:
How do I recognise and celebrate the wins of students? (Me) - Reflection
How does the team celebrate the combined effort that led to success? (We) - Acknowledgement
How do the whole staff get recognised and rewarded for the school’s success? - (Us) Valued
Let’s check in regularly and celebrate often.
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