Need to build positive emotions in institutions

11 September, 2012

It is well-established now through research that negative emotions such as worry, anger, stress, and impatience, etc., distort cardiovascular activity, which redistributes blood flow to the body organs and brain to affect adversely both physical health and mental well-being of humans.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY recognizes the role of positive emotions on the health and well being of persons and helps them to broaden and build their positive emotions. Developing emotional intelligence of people by attending to their positive emotions is also called 'broaden-and-build theory' of positive psychology.

When seen as a science, positive psychology encourages people to test, refine, uphold, or discard the broaden-and-build theory instead of believing blindly in it.

Research in the area of positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, optimism, self-worth, affection, and care, etc., shows that positive emotions correct the abnormalities of cerebral blood flow distribution.

To me, it is worthwhile to make a shift towards a positive emotions-charged classroom environment for student engagement in middle and high school classrooms. It is the age in which students want idealism and wish to be independent learners.

The scheme of comprehensive and continuous evaluation (CCE) can succeed if positive emotions are built into the classroom along with cooperative learning strategy based on care-and-share in small groups and formative evaluation leading to maximization of learning by most students.