Living and Teaching Well-being: An Application Plan for a Professional Certificate in Applied Positive Education at The Shawnee Institute

Modern education is largely focused on academic achievement, yet recent research has called into question whether academic learning is enough to foster and support mental and physical health across the lifespan. Mounting interest in more well-balanced educational approaches that integrate academic learning and character education have inspired the emergence of a new field called positive education. Despite a growing demand, comprehensive training in positive education remains limited. The Shawnee Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of positive education, aims to fill this void by launching a professional certificate in applied positive education. The following paper presents a tailored application plan for implementing a professional certificate program at The Shawnee Institute which includes a situational analysis of the education sector, as well as a literature review detailing the relevance of well-being theory, experiential learning, and personal and organizational change in education settings. The plan concludes with recommendations for professional competencies, a proposal for effective program implementation and evaluation, a detailed curriculum outline, and a sample learning module.