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The scenario is presented to the group of Farnsworth Middle School boys sitting across the table: Someone starts a rumor about you.
They’ve been asked to consider scenarios and talk about how they’d react. Each middle-schooler holds a card. One side says “things you can control” and the other says “things you can’t control.”
A boy at the end of the table raises his hand and flips his card to the “things you can control” side.
“You control how you respond to it,” he says. “If someone starts a rumor, you could just go with it. Ignore it. Your friends all know that you’re telling the truth to them. They trust you.”
Kelly Smith, an assistant professor of education and chair of the Professional Education Programs Department at Russell Sage, leans in, nodding her head.
“So having a clear idea that people get to believe what they want to believe,” she says. “Friends are going to know that this isn’t true, and the other ones I don’t really care about. I’m going to ignore their reaction. That is a response.”
In 2024, Russell Sage College became the first college in the nation to partner with the Center for Positive Education and integrate training in Positive Education – which is grounded in Positive Psychology and focuses on teaching a mindset that develops academic tenacity while building emotional and social well-being – into its teaching and school counseling programs.
Meanwhile, at Farnsworth Middle School in the Guilderland Central Schools, Principal Michael Laster has long focused on building character alongside academics. Having previously partnered with Russell Sage on some character education projects, he heard about the new Positive Education focus in Sage’s Esteves School of Education and invited the faculty and education students to spend a couple of days at Farnsworth leading activities.
On December 4 and 5, 250 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students rotated through stations that focused on key skills and techniques in Positive Education, including teamwork, resilience, practicing curiosity to build understanding about other perspectives, determining things you can and can’t control and deciding how to react to them, and positive vs. negative spiralling.
“Especially in today’s fast-paced society, the use of social media, the constant bombardment of entertainment and news, and use of cellphones, I think making sure that you teach students what we as adults know really make a difference in their success and their life, things like perseverance, being curious, being resilient, making sure that you respect yourself and respect others, those are qualities that supersede anything you’re going to learn in the classroom,” Laster says. “But they can be applied to any classroom or any career that our students decide to go into. We believe that’s part of the difference in what we do at Farnsworth Middle School.”
Positive Education has already made a difference in the kind of teacher Carolyn Bruchac, a junior majoring in Childhood Education (with a 7-9 extension) and concentration in history, will be.
She was leading the respect station, where the middle-schoolers talked about empathy and how to turn a negative emotion into a positive one by reframing the situation and choosing to “upward spiral” rather than “downward spiral.”
“I like it so much because it puts a different perspective on what teaching is and what learning is. I feel like most people remember school as the things they did wrong in or right in. And Positive Education says we want to focus on the good you’re doing and want you to continue doing good,” she says. “I want to be the teacher that I needed when I was their age. Positive Education allows me to be that kind of teacher because it embeds happiness and resilience.”
She said adding Positive Education to her teacher toolbox has made her more confident in joining the profession. She called her father on the way home from Farnsworth that day, excited to talk about how she is sure she found her calling as a middle school teacher.
“I feel like every year I have Positive Education, I’m more comfortable with myself as a teacher,” Bruchac says. “I feel so grateful to be a part of the Russell Sage education community because I will talk to my other friends who are in an education program, but they’re at other schools. I feel like I’ve had so much experience that I could have never had elsewhere.”
Smith, a Certified Positive Educator who spent more than 30 years as a public school teacher and administrator, says she’s proud of the way her students have embraced this new way of viewing their work.
“Our job as teachers is to assist students in building skills and practices that help them in learning and in life,” Smith says. “Our future teachers and school counselors are learning practices they can put in place as professionals and have the potential to transform not only their future students but the schools they’ll work for. We’re excited to spend this time connecting with students at Farnsworth, a school that has already embraced these concepts for a long time. This is just the start of a long partnership, I’m sure.”
Note: The Times Union was also at Farnsworth Middle School to chronicle our work with the students. Check out that story at timesunion.com.