Positive education: A new look at Freedom to Learn

ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen much interest in positive education. In this article, we will show how person-centred education, like positive education, is concerned with the promotion of human flourishing. Both offer ways in which education goes beyond traditional skills and knowledge to a concern for the well-being of people. However, we argue that an awareness of the scholarship of Carl Rogers, the author of Freedom to Learn and the originator of the person-centred approach with its contrasting ontological stance to human nature will broaden the scope of the positive education movement to create a healthy and necessary theoretical tension in views of how positive education can be delivered.

KEYWORDS:

• Positive education
• person-centred education
• human flourishing
• Carl Rogers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Joseph

Stephen Joseph is Professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham. Stephen is a psychologist and the convenor for the human flourishing research group. His research interests are in positive psychology and person-centred education. He is the editor of Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting human flourishing in work, health, education, and everyday life (Wiley, 2015).

David Murphy

David Murphy is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham and is the Course Director for the MA in Person-Centred Experiential Counselling and Psychotherapy. His interests are in approaches to experiential learning and education, psychology in education and mental wellbeing and human flourishing. David is editor of the official BPS-Wiley Counselling Psychology: A textbook for study and practice (2017).

John Holford

John Holford is Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham. A Sociologist who has spent most of his career in adult education, his research has focused chiefly on the role of lifelong education in the formation of citizens, communities and social movements. John’s main current research interest is in adult learning of citizenship. His books include The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning (co-editor, 2017).