Doing alright and flourishing are not the same thing! In fact, they are quite different. Just check out synonyms for doing alright and flourishing, and you’ll see what I mean:
- Doing alright: doing OK, satisfactorily, adequately, good enough, so-so
- Flourishing: growing, thriving, developing, prospering, bearing fruit
What comes to mind when you think of flourishing? What comes to mind for me is consistently experiencing the 5 elements of flourishing: passionate purpose, resilient well-being, healthy relationships, transformative leaning and helpful resources.
This means that flourishing involves consistently experiencing each and every one of the 5 of the elements of flourishing—not inconsistently experiencing 1 or more of the elements or experiencing a lesser version of an element (like transformationless learning instead of transformative learning).
Photo by Medienstürmer on Unsplash
Let me explain further by providing a description of what it looks like for a student to experience each of the 5 elements at the “doing alright” level and at the “flourishing” level:
(A) Passionate purpose:
- Doing alright students experience infrequent personal goal setting, a lack of perceived freedom to ask tough faith-related questions, and Christian teachers.
- Flourishing students consistently experience personal goal setting, making a positive impact for Jesus, the freedom to ask and discuss difficult faith-related questions (see Construct: Questioning, p. 14), and a living curriculum (staff) that models Christ-centered passionate purpose.
(B) Resilient well-being:
- Doing alright students experience irregular exercise, some durability during a crisis, and a basically safe environment.
- Flourishing students consistently experience physical exercise and a good diet (see Construct: Healthy Living, p. 18), sufficient personal durability in times of crisis (see Construct: Resilience, p. 18); and a safe, nurturing, Christ-centered environment.
(C) Healthy relationships:
- Doing alright students experience reasonably safe, respectful peer relationships; and respectful Christian teachers.
- Flourishing students consistently experience safe, caring, collaborative, respectful peer relationships; caring, collaborative, respectful Christ-centered staff (see Construct: Christlike Teachers p. 15); and a living curriculum (staff) that has healthy relationships with other staff.
(D) Transformative learning:
- Doing alright students experience class content and skills, some good teaching practices, and teachers who have mastered class content and skills.
- Flourishing students consistently experience big questions, big ideas, and big skills; best practice content, assessment, instruction, and feedback that are designed to help them achieve the Christ-centered outcomes; and a living curriculum (staff) that models transformative learning.
(E) Helpful resources:
- Doing alright students experience some quality instructional materials and qualified Christ-centered staff.
- Flourishing students consistently experience engaging instructional materials (see Construct: Resources, p. 17); qualified, joyful, Christ-centered staff who have a best-practice mindset (see Construct: Qualified Staff and Best Practice Orientation, p. 17); and a living curriculum (staff) that models the value of helpful resources.
Bottom line: Don’t let your students just do alright. Instead, help them flourish!
Here are some related resources:
- What do flourishing students at international Christian consistently experience?
- We can flourish without experiencing resilient well-being, right?
- We can flourish without experiencing transformative learning, right?
- What’s the difference between passionless purpose and passionate purpose?
Photo by Sara
What about you? What’s the difference between doing alright and flourishing? For a student, what does it look like to be doing alright for each of the 5 elements of flourishing? For a student, what does it look like to be flourishing in each of the 5 elements of flourishing? What’s 1 action step you can take to help 1 student move toward flourishing?
Get flourishing!
Michael
Get Flourishing 