Highlights from the Wellbeing Symposium at British School Jakarta

At the end of May, I was fortunate to be invited to be part of the Wellbeing Symposium at British School Jakarta (BSJ). The symposium was a fabulous week and an absolute highlight of my year so far!

The symposium was organised by the fabulous Andrea Downie, BSJ’s Wellbeing Director, and the incredible David Butcher, BSJ’s Principal, and a fantastic team behind them. David, who I adore, has a real vision of what education could look like, and I love their tagline of “We shape the School, and the School shapes Us.”

Several presentations were a highlight for me, with seven key experts being invited from overseas to share their expertise, including myself, Robert Biswas-Diener, David Bott, Jane Drake, Fiona Gray, Lindsay Oades and Jessamy Gee.

The symposium opened with two spotlights, the first with Robert, speaking about Culture and Happiness, and then Lindsay addressed the UNESCO Flourishing in Education.

Lindsay had just flown from Rome and the Humanity 2.0 group at the Vatican, so had some wonderful recent ideas about the future of education, and Robert always provides value by provoking questions.

On the first full day, I delivered my ‘Future is Human’ keynote, which generated ideas and inspiration of things we can do differently if we want a better world for our descendants.

Yufi Adriani, a local wellbeing expert, followed with a spotlight session on Perceptions of Wellbeing in Indonesia, which was excellent for providing a local perspective based on her Master of PP research. After this, there were a number of workshops, with Robert facilitating a session on meaning, I facilitated a session on emotions, Jane facilitated a session on connection, and David facilitated a session on teaching. Fiona ran a session on Thriving through Nature: The Case for Biophilic Design in Educational Spaces, which was amazing! More and more schools and organisations are focusing on how to harmonise nature and the built environment, and Fiona provided insights and inspiration.

Following the workshops, there was another fabulous spotlight by David Bott on The Power of Pictures, and then more workshops, including one by the fabulous Jessamy Gee, who also did the graphic recording for all the spotlight sessions during the week. Jessamy did an incredible job with the graphic recording and it was fabulous to see how she did what she did!

Another big highlight for me, and something that Robert and I spoke about, was the experience of doing various things across the week rather than just one keynote and leaving. Robert delivered a couple of keynotes and three workshops. I delivered one keynote and four workshops, which meant variety for us as well as the participants which worked incredibly well.

I also loved having the opportunity to do a deep dive into emotions in one of my sessions that included some of the parents, which was fabulous as it allowed parents to explore how to handle emotions more effectively at home – both theirs and their children.

Delivering a session on Psychological Richness, based on Shigehiro Oishi’s work, was great fun as it is a new area of research in positive psychology and it provides the opportunity to ask questions as well as answer them. I loved delivering an interactive session on strengths to teachers and parents, as it helped bring strengths to life with so much energy in the room.

My last workshop was ‘The Invisible Classroom’, covering some insights from neuroscience, with the ‘Invisible Classroom’ being about what goes on in your head. Understanding neuroscience can be so helpful and exploring how learning works from a brain perspective can provide so much insight into what works and what doesn’t when it comes to change, decisions, self-regulation, learning, creativity!

Overall, the involvement of the children was outstanding. The fire, earthquake and lightening drill was created by the students and had the whole audience enthralled. Then, for us as speakers, a real highlight was being introduced by students (starting at five years of age for Robert as the first speaker). It blew us away seeing these gorgeous students introduce world renown experts! Best introduction ever!

At one point, Robert and I began scribbling our own graphics while listening to the spotlight sessions.

It was also wonderful to see the different art installations around the school to support the Wellbeing Symposium, all developed by the teachers and students. The variety included a wellbeing wall, listening wall, graffiti and painting. Watching the teachers do five minute presentations during the lunch break was fabulous as they all shared things to do with their strengths, passions and wellbeing bringing so many fun, practical ideas to life.

During the week, we were invited to dinner at a couple of delicious local restaurants, igniting wonderful conversation having time with the Heads of School and the Board of Executives. On top of that, spending time in the car to and from the school, hotel and restaurants encouraged deep and rich discussions with esteemed colleagues.

I am grateful in particular to the range and depth of dialogue between myself, Robert, Lindsay and David that inspired and transformed thinking and left a lasting impression that will stay with me for many years to come!

My final highlight was the energy! My whole purpose in life is to breathe spirit into the minds of others to achieve their level of excellence and this week allowed me to deliver on that purpose. Thank you BSJ!

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