By Sarah Hall

Editor

Elementary schools across the country have discovered the Positivity Project, a character education program first piloted at Liverpool’s Morgan Road Elementary.

But can it work in a high school?

Cicero-North Syracuse High School Executive Principal Bill LaClair thinks so.

“Looking at the Positivity Project and what it can offer, it was more of an elementary approach,” he said. “But then reaching out to the founder, Mike Erwin, and then attending the training with some of my staff, we realized that this has value at the high school level.”

Erwin, who did two tours in Afghanistan and another in Iraq, designed the program around the themes of positive psychology, which he studied at the University of Michigan under Dr. Chris Peterson, who passed away in 2012. Erwin taught psychology and leadership to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, ultimately creating what he called the Positive Psychology Project, which centered around 24 character strengths and the science behind them. In 2015, to honor Peterson’s memory, Erwin created a Facebook page focusing on the project, which he renamed the Positivity Project. The page caught the attention of MRE teacher Marc Herron, and, with the help of a committee at the school, Erwin created a curriculum based on the 24 character strengths that the school piloted in the 2015-16 school year.

From there the Positivity Project took off; it’s now in more than 400 schools — and growing. While it’s mainly in grades K through 6, LaClair said Erwin is adapting the program to fit the secondary level. Part of that involves using students themselves to help implement it.

“We trained 70 student leaders,” LaClair said. “Hopefully that gains more momentum coming from a student. So we’re very excited about what this is going to offer and improve the relationships between the student body.”

LaClair pointed out that with a school as big as C-NS — this year’s senior class alone has 691 students — it can be difficult for kids to get to know many of their classmates.

“Their hashtag is ‘other people matter,’ and it focuses on relationships, which if we can improve that in a school, it just helps the students feel better, safer, connected,” LaClair said. “I think [this will help us] come up with a theme where we’re building relationships in these non-structured places — cafeterias, hallways, things like that, environments where kids feel like, ‘Wow, I don’t know anybody here.’”

LaClair said pointing out shared character strengths, the focal point of the Positivity Project, can help break down barriers.

“We are all going to put our top character strength out on our doorways, the teachers’ doorways. I have them hanging in my office, me and my secretary’s, what our top character strength is,” LaClair said. “That way, even if I don’t know a teacher, I can say, ‘Oh, your character strength is perseverance.’ Immediately I might have a connection with that.”

He said the student leaders have planned such activities as Shutdown Friday, when kids shut off their phones in the cafeteria to ensure more interaction between students, among others. He said everything will be led by the student leadership team, with help from faculty.

“It’s not coming from adults, it’s coming from their peers,” LaClair said. “I do think it’s going to have a greater impact.”

He said the Positivity Project has the potential to change the culture in the building.

“Sometimes kids — as adults even, we don’t give people an opportunity because we don’t really know them,” LaClair said. “But they’re missing out on so many other relationships that they could have. They could meet great people. Just to eliminate the perceptions and the stereotypes that come with high school age students… One thing that is lacking in our society even is empathy, you know? The Positivity Project is big about that —#otherpeoplematter. I’m really excited about this program.”