Australian School Teaching Positive Psychology to Alleviate Test Anxiety

From The Sydney Morning Herald.

More Australian news for you today:  The Sydney Morning Herald reports that schools are teaching students life coaching and positive psychology skills because of greatly increased stress levels. Over the past five years, students appealing their test scores for psychological reasons have increased 30 percent--greater than the increase in the student population. So either students are getting craftier in how they improve their grades or they really are more stressed out.

Dr. Anthony Grant of the University of Sydney's psychology department says, "The children of today, particularly those in selective schools, are under more pressure than they have ever been before." Dr. Grant studied 56 high school students and found that life coaching decreases levels of depression while increasing hope and resilience. He became interested in the subject because two or three principals called him per week asking for positive psychology classes. Another study from the University of Sydney found that high-stakes testing harms motivation.

I don't have much more to say about this story, but I do have a SPECIAL MESSAGE for those who read this blog every day (hopefully you exist):  I might not be able to update this blog until next Tuesday because I'm attending the Global Happiness Summit near San Francisco! I'll try to take pictures and tell you how it goes, but I don't know if I'll have the time or the Internet connection to update while I'm there. It'll be a change of pace for this blog, but that's okay because variety is actually a big component of happiness!