More than 50 principals, vice-principals and counsellors, representing 20 top schools of Lucknow, attended ‘Permanand’, an interactive session on creating positive psychology and happiness at schools here on Saturday.
The session — jointly organised by the Lucknow Management Association (LMA) and Global Lucknow, a voluntary organisation — was a prelude to the ‘International LMA Convention on Promoting Happiness though Public Policy’, scheduled on November 16, 2019.
Dr Manju Agrawal, dean & professor of psychology and hypnotherapist at Amity University, opened the session by bringing out the child within the participants — making them dance and take part in fun activities.
“Participants were given several real-life situations to deliberate upon and come out with suggestions to have happy children at schools,” said Dr Agarwal.
“We should not shy away from taking professional help if any undesirable behaviour or symptom stays for more than 7 to 10 days. Mental health issues need to be accepted as much as physical ones. Every family should have a psychologist who understands its members and helps them whenever required,” she said.
Dr Agarwal said that the internal happiness of teachers was also very important for them to be able to give unconditional love to children and make them vibrant and happy.
“We conducted the workshop with the objective of creating a positive environment for teachers and students, for optimising their functioning, helping them stay happy and healthy and creating a positive environment at schools,” she said.
Senior vice-president LMA AK Mathur and career counsellor Dr Amrita Dass were among those who participated in the session.
Dr Dass said the programme was meaningful and valuable. “Participants got to learn about positive psychology. Sharing of best practices at schools also added to our knowledge and understanding,” she said.
The participants said that such workshops were required for all the stakeholders – teachers, parents and students.
“We felt that we are taking away a lot of food for thought and action,” said Aruna Gupta, an educator representing City Montessori School.
A few weeks ago, in another initiative aimed at understanding the importance of working towards the happiness of students and teachers, Hindustan Times had organised a round-table of principals of some of the leading schools of the state capital. The participants had said that keeping in view the number of school children committing suicides, it was necessary to address the issue urgently and take steps to create a happy environment at schools.
