PERMAH: A useful model for focusing on weil-being in schools

Abstract

The application of Positive Psychology within schools contends that education should prioritize both academic development and well-being. Nevertheless, high levels of mental distress and disengagement experienced by students, burnout and exhaustion of teachers and school leaders, and disconnections between the skills learned in school and the needs of the 21st-century workplace point to myopic education systems grounded in ineffective paradigms. An alternative paradigm is needed in which well-being is a central priority within schools. Such a paradigm requires that the abstract construct of well-being is conceptualized in a relatable, tangible, and measurable way. Over the past decade, the P..