How can we create schools that nurture all aspects of student flourishing? Schools that support students to build a strong identity founded on good character and virtue. Schools that encourage students to foster close relationships and feel a sense of belonging in their school community. Schools that support students to be happy and healthy. Schools that create the conditions for students to be intrinsically motivated to learn, experience flow, and find meaning and purpose in their work. 

The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard and Research Schools International have curated a collection of research-based activities that promote student flourishing in this broadest sense. In this presentation, we will present these activities, along with illustrative examples of how they have been implemented from our research in schools. Finally, we will share an opportunity to be involved in an upcoming project on flourishing in schools. Participants will leave this session with research-based activities that they can readily implement in their schools to promote student flourishing. 

Dr Jonathan Beale is Researcher-in-Residence at Eton College & an Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; and a Research Fellow for ‘BrainCanDo’ – an educational neuroscience research centre. He is the co-editor of three books for Routledge: Wittgenstein and Scientism (2017), The ‘BrainCanDo’ Handbook of Teaching and Learning (2020) and Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy (2022). He has published articles on education and philosophy in academic journals including Ratio and in media outlets including The New York Times, and has given invited talks at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, UCL, Sheffield, Yale, Ottawa and Zaragoza, and for organizations including the Royal Society of Arts. He completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Reading and was a Fellow in Philosophy at Harvard University from 2011-13.

Dr. Christina Hinton is the Founder and CEO of Research Schools International and a Research Affiliate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. Dr. Hinton was a faculty member at Harvard Graduate School of Education for many years, lecturing on the neuroscience of learning, social-emotional learning, global competence, and school-based research. She completed her doctorate and Master’s in neuroscience and education at Harvard, where she was selected as a Presidential Fellow and Dean’s Fellow for outstanding scholarly work. She also completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and a research fellowship at Sesame Workshop. Prior to Harvard, she worked in multilateral diplomacy and international policy-making at the OECD’s Center for Educational Research and Innovation and UNICEF. At the OECD, she was a primary editor and author of the books Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science and Languages in a Global World: Learning for Better Cultural Understanding.