POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Positive psychology has been coming into vogue in recent years. Educational facilities across the country, and indeed the world, have started to focus on how they can introduce positive psychology into the classroom. While this is the case for many institutions, it is not necessarily new to Boomerang Adventures.

Dr. Martin Seligman has been working on incorporating his expertise on positive psychology into education. He believes that positive psychology in education can decrease depression and anxiety in younger people.

Seligman uses his PERMA model (the five elements of well-being) to teach in schools to help the students well-being and flourish.

P – Positive Emotions: Feeling positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, interest, hope.
E – Engagement: Being fully absorbed in activities that use your skills yet challenge you.
R – Relationships: Having positive relationships.
M – Meaning: Belonging to and serving something you believe is bigger than yourself.
A – Accomplishment: Pursuing success, winning achievement and mastery.

Again, while this model is reasonably recent, it has been at the heart of how Boomerang Adventures has operated since its humble beginnings in 2004.

Positive emotions – If you have ever seen or experienced a Boomerang Adventures camp or program, you could not deny how positive the students feel. One of the skills we have as an organisation is the ability to be positive and radiate that positivity on to our students. You can see it in our staff, and you can definitely see it in the students. The student who is a little bit unsure, or even negative towards camp, is beaming by the end. Students have the opportunity to feel a range of positive emotions throughout a program with us.

Engagement – Without doubt, our ability to engage students is second to none. We have always worked on the principle that down time is bad time. And again, if you have experienced our camps, you would know that the students are engaged for a large majority of the time. Even in ‘free time’ or the ‘shower hour’, our staff are looking for opportunities to be engaged with the students. That is on top of a full scheduled program. It is this engagement which allows us to build such great relationships with the students.

Relationships – Again, this is at the heart of who Boomerang Adventures is. Everything we do is based on relationship. Our primary goal when working with students is to develop meaningful relationships with the students. To us, this is the key to gaining many of the benefits talked about when looking at introducing positive psychology to your curriculum. We believe Boomerang Adventures is second to none in this area, and it is why we are so successful and have a meaningful impact on student’s lives.

Meaning – We often say to staff that anything done without meaning is hardly worth doing. It is for this reason that we have a real meaning for everything we do with students. As discussed above, the meaning of what we do may sometimes be hidden. Take an abseil as an example. At face value, it is an adrenaline activity with height, that often gets a student’s pulse racing. To us, it is more about the trust that can be built between a student and a staff member. It is allowing the student to do something they didn’t think they could do, and achieving in that space.

Accomplishment – Another integral part of what we do. We can’t tell you the amount of time when speaking to our staff, that we have spoken about allowing the students to achieve. Allowing them to experience success, and accomplish something while away with us, is an opportunity that we look for constantly with our students. This is not only in the big picture, but also through all the little bits and pieces as well. For example, on our recent staff orientation camp, staff members were discussing the little games we might play with our students around the fire, or at a break or whenever we are looking to engage them in something when there is no formal activity going on. Even at this time, we discussed choosing games or riddles that will challenge, but allow success.

Boomerang Adventures is able to apply the PERMA model into its programs in a very special way. Our staff are experts and understand these principles and how to apply them in an outdoor setting better than anyone. The reason for this is because Boomerang Adventures was born out of these principles, before they were even recognised as a way forward in today’s society.