Building Strengths and Resilience at Culver

Positive Psychology, Character Strengths and Well-Being

"I have been given license to use my strengths, and guidance to use them wisely without exaggeration . . . to attain higher goals." - Culver Academies Leadership Education Instructor

Over the past three summers, 63 faculty members participated in a three-day intensive seminar entitled “Building Strengths and Resilience at Culver.”

Faculty participants have learned

• Ways to broaden and build position emotion in themselves and their students
• Strategies they can use their strengths to be more optimistic and resilient;
• Relationship-building approaches for building high quality connections at school.

Faculty and staff participants identified their own and student "signature" strengths, such as hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, responsibility and perseverance. They developed strategies to foster a strengths-based approach in the classroom, living unit, visual and performing arts and athletic arenas in the areas of motivation, optimism, resilience and savoring.

By learning about character strengths and ways to build and apply them, teachers can be guided to acknowledge, own, and apply their own strengths, to value their authentic selves, and to increase both their collective and self-efficacy. This information is very valuable to faculty members who can then have a better snapshot of individual, peer and student strengths. Also, this may be very helpful in working with groups of students in all phases of school life. As one faculty participant so aptly put it, "I now think differently about how I teach."