Leading with gratitude | 4 April

Recent research on gratitude has highlighted its potential to build and maintain healthy relationships, where there is a correlation between gratitude and other prosocial states such as empathy, forgiveness, emotional support and willingness to help others. Research with educational leaders demonstrates that attention to gratitude can restore trust, staff morale, and have a direct positive impact on teachers’ inner attitudes and therefore on students. It has also shown that these outcomes are more assured if due consideration is given to the challenges experienced and when gratitude is taken up as a practice.

This workshop will take account of time-poor and stressful environments, and address some of the complexities relating to practising gratitude in times of adversity and in the midst of the negativity of others. It will also explore some of the important cultural differences that need to be considered when expressing gratitude, and in particular those of indigenous people. It is envisioned that participants will leave the workshop feeling inspired to lead and teach with greater attention to gratitude, and have practical strategies to do so.

This presentation will be of practical relevance to a wide range of audiences, including educators, leaders, policy makers, thought-leaders, and those responsible for professional development.

About Kerry

Dr Kerry Howells is an academic and teacher educator in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania. Her research spans over two decades of critical inquiry into the role of gratitude in education. This research is a philosophical exploration of gratitude and she investigates the contextual influences on the meaning and practical implementation. She has a particular interest in cross-cultural lenses of gratitude and their implications for communication and has studied this in the context of Australian indigenous and African indigenous cultures. Her decades of research on the role of gratitude in education has demonstrated that students’ learning is influenced both by their own practices of gratitude and by the gratitude expressed and modelled by their teachers and school leaders. Kerry has published academic papers that report on her findings in the areas of school leadership and teaching, pre-service teacher education, indigenous education, early childhood education, and academic learning. Dr Howells’ book, Gratitude in Education: A Radical View, has encapsulated many case studies and has been used to guide educational programs, theory and professional book clubs globally and in a range of contexts. Kerry has recently undertaken research projects in the role of gratitude in early childhood leadership, in elite sport, and in the quality of life of cancer patients and their carers.

Register for this event

Your video, audio and the meeting chat transcript may be recorded or photographed. Please advise the facilitator if you do not wish to be recorded or photographed.

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