Hannah Oakden

Flourishing Education: A Vision for the Future

Host: Hannah Oakden: teacher, mother, MAPP student, and wellbeing advocate

Length: ~20 minutes

Context: Exploring how positive psychology can transform education through the lens of the Sustainable Flourishing Goals and SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing.

Episode Overview

In this episode, Hannah reimagines education not just as a system for achievement, but as a living ecosystem for human flourishing. Drawing from global wellbeing frameworks, positive psychology research, and personal experience, she explores how schools can nurture aliveness, connection, and purpose for students and teachers alike.

Key Themes

• The difference between Sustainable Flourishing Goals and UN SDG 3 - shifting from health to wholeness.
• Why flourishing requires both structural support and psychological empowerment.
• The power of hope, relationships, and meaning in transforming school cultures.

Challenges & Hope

Hannah unpacks systemic barriers – workload, compliance, burnout – and balances critique with optimism, showing how hope theory and real-world examples like Geelong Grammar’s Positive Education can inspire meaningful reform.

 Featured Theories & Scholars

Seligman (PERMA), Deci & Ryan (Self-Determination Theory), Fredrickson (Broaden & Build), Snyder (Hope Theory), Roffey (Relational Wellbeing), and Karthikeya et al. (Sustainable Flourishing Goals).