Kindness – See the Good! | Dr. Kaisa Vuorinen
Kindness – Character strengths miniseries with See the Good!
Happy kids learn best!
See the Good! is a scientifically proven Finnish teaching method based on the very latest research on positive psychology and character strengths. Their method helps students to recognize and use character strengths at school and beyond. It guides teachers, builds positive school culture, and promotes collaboration between the home and school.
Their guiding principle is simple: when you see the good in people, you see the results in the classroom and beyond.
https://www.seethegood.app/
Listen to my full interview with Dr. Kaisa Vuorinen
š„ Discover more about Education on Fire, get a FREE pdf of 10 guest resources. https://www.educationonfire.com
š„ Support the show ā Buy me a coffee, Merch and Sponsorship Opportunities https://www.educationonfire.com/support
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English Program for Kids ā Night Zookeeper
FUN: There are thousands of engaging language arts activities for Grades 1 to 6 that your child can play independently.
COMPREHENSIVE: The program covers a full language arts curriculum of reading, writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, that rewards children as they progress.
TRACKABLE: A parent dashboard helps you track your childās progress and enables you to set your own assignments.
PERSONALIZED: Children get written feedback from our team of tutors on their pieces of writing- so you donāt need to be the bad guy!
TRUSTED: An award winning program, used by thousands of homeschool families. Rated 4.7 on Trustpilot.
http://educationonfire.com/nightzookeeper (Affiliate promotion)
Kaisa Vuorinen: Happy Kids Learn Best, But Not Without Happy Teachers
Kaisa Vuorinen, PhD, is a Finnish researcher, educator, speaker, author and the founder and CEO of Positive Learning. Her work focuses on positive education, character strengths, socio-emotional skills, well-being, and flourishing in education. Kaisa has trained teachers and educational leaders in over 30 countries and has spoken at numerous international conferences and educational forums worldwide.
She is the creator and co-author of the award-winning See the Good! approach, which helps schools systematically identify, teach, and strengthen studentsā character strengths and socio-emotional skills. Kaisa is the author and co-author of several books and teaching materials, as well as scientific publications, and her work combines research with practical tools for everyday school life.
Key takeaways
- Change the question. Kaisa starts her workshops by asking āwhat is working despite the difficulties?ā rather than āwhat is wrong?ā She says that when we change the question, we change the person we interact with.
- See it, say it, grow it. The See the Good method has three steps. First, notice whatās already working. Second, give people the vocabulary of strengths so they can name them. Third, act on the skills you want to see more of, such as perseverance, compassion and creativity.
- Wellbeing and learning go together. Global studies show that wellbeing and academic learning complement each other rather than compete. Character strengths bring wellbeing into the whole school, covering the heart and hands as well as the mind.
- Happy kids learn best, but not without happy teachers. The teacher-student relationship is the critical part. Teachers who know their own strengths, and their own āwhyā, feel more motivated and less stressed, and that carries over to their students.
- Resilience is collective. Kaisaās chosen word is the Finnish concept of sisu, meaning perseverance. She says resilience grows when we come together rather than facing hard days alone, and that skills like this matter even more as AI changes the world.
Chapters:
- 00:02 – Introducing Kaisa Vuorinen, Ph.D. ā Founder of Positive Learning
- 03:14 – From Conference to Classroom: How See the Good Began
- 10:56 – Partnering with the University of Helsinki to Build Character-Strengths Education
- 19:54 – Bringing Character Education into Practice: Programs and Implementation
- 26:14 – How to Engage: Books, Platform, and Training
- 31:18 – Scaling ‘See the Good’: Training Teachers Across Cultures
- 38:22 – From Conversation to Action ā Plans for Recordings and Live Shows
- 39:41 – Mini podcasts: exploring and supporting character strengths in young people
- 46:16 – Wrap-up: Introducing the FIRE Acronym (Feedback, Inspiration, Resilience, Empowerment)
Instagram @kaisavuorinenn
Substack Dr. Kaisa Vuorinen
Linkedin Kaisa Vuorinen
š„ Discover more about Education on Fire, get a FREE pdf of 10 guest resources.
https://www.educationonfire.com
š„ Support the show ā Buy me a coffee, Merch and Sponsorship Opportunities
https://www.educationonfire.com/support
#EducationOnFire
Show Sponsors ā
National Association for Primary Education (NAPE)
Their Primary First Journal: https://www.educationonfire.com/nape
English Program for Kids ā Night Zookeeper
FUN: There are thousands of engaging language arts activities for Grades 1 to 6 that your child can play independently.
COMPREHENSIVE: The program covers a full language arts curriculum of reading, writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, that rewards children as they progress.
TRACKABLE: A parent dashboard helps you track your childās progress and enables you to set your own assignments.
PERSONALIZED: Children get written feedback from our team of tutors on their pieces of writing- so you donāt need to be the bad guy!
TRUSTED: An award winning program, used by thousands of homeschool families. Rated 4.7 on Trustpilot.
3 min update on future podcast release days
Mark Taylor will be adding extra podcasts to the current weekly schedule on an ad hoc basis.
š„ This will help give you more valuable conversations to support young people.
š„ Reduce the time between recording and release dates for guests as required
š„ Provided more flexibility for mini series
š„ Allow me to produce the show in a way that fits best with my freelance career
š„ Continue the momentum we are building in an individual way
Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for feedback on this.
To make sure you don’t miss anything please subscribe, follow and hit the notification icons. Better still make sure you are on my free newsletter.
Sign up at https://www.educationonfire.com
Antivirus for What We Eat: How Jordan Robinson Turned Coding Into Food Safety
What if there was antivirus software for what we eat? Software architect Jordan Robinson, a father of two and former lead instructor with Cultivating Coders, shares how teaching kids to code and refurbishing thousands of donated computers led him to build Piece of Mind.
Anxin: Piece of Mind is an AI-powered food-safety platform. It helps families scan purchases and ingredients, monitor FDA recalls, track expiration dates, manage household food inventory, and review restaurant inspection informationābringing essential safety tools together in one convenient app.
Key Takeaways
- Creativity isnāt just for the arts. Technology becomes creative when you use it to solve a real problem, and the journey of building the solution is the creative part.
- Lego-style confidence. Building a computer piece by piece (drive, RAM, operating system) shows learners that tech that sounds hard is manageable. That first win builds the confidence to keep going.
- Lead with value, not āwhatās in it for me.ā Jordan reaches out to people with ideas that add value, and heās heard ānoā thousands of times for every āyesā. That approach brought thousands of donated Intel computers into his community, refurbished and given back.
- Close the āinformation gap.ā Recalls and health inspections only help if you hear about them in time. His app scans several sources every 15 minutes, so families can avoid self-inflicted wounds like eating something recalled.
- AI is only as good as your prompts. His early AI-generated recipes were the worst in the world until the prompting was refined. The human behind the tool still matters.
Chapters:
- 00:03 – Introducing Jordan Robinson ā Software Architect and Coding Educator
- 01:49 – Jordanās early life and path into computer education
- 09:15 – How to Make Connections: Reaching Out to People and Organizations
- 14:48 – From Coding to Creating a Food-Safety App
- 23:05 – Dining Out Risks and Restaurant Health Inspections
- 28:11 – FIRE ā Feedback, Inspiration, Resilience & Empowerment
* Website: PieceOfMind.fyiā ļæ¼
* Instagram: @AnxinAppā ļæ¼
* Facebook: AnxinAppā ļæ¼
* X: @AnxinAppā ļæ¼
* Threads: @AnxinAppā ļæ¼
* Bluesky: @anxinapp.bsky.socialā ļæ¼
* YouTube: @AnxinAppā ļæ¼
* TikTok: Anxin on TikTokā ļæ¼
* LinkedIn: Jordan Robinson / Anxin Founderā ļæ¼
š„ Discover more about Education on Fire, get a FREE pdf of 10 guest resources.
https://www.educationonfire.com
š„ Support the show ā Buy me a coffee, Merch and Sponsorship Opportunities
https://www.educationonfire.com/support
#EducationOnFire
Show Sponsors ā
National Association for Primary Education (NAPE)
Their Primary First Journal: https://www.educationonfire.com/nape
English Program for Kids ā Night Zookeeper
FUN: There are thousands of engaging language arts activities for Grades 1 to 6 that your child can play independently.
COMPREHENSIVE: The program covers a full language arts curriculum of reading, writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, that rewards children as they progress.
TRACKABLE: A parent dashboard helps you track your childās progress and enables you to set your own assignments.
PERSONALIZED: Children get written feedback from our team of tutors on their pieces of writing- so you donāt need to be the bad guy!
TRUSTED: An award winning program, used by thousands of homeschool families. Rated 4.7 on Trustpilot.
Rob Heller: Teaching Teens Life Skills, Social Skills and Resilience in a Phone-Based World
Rob Heller is a successful entrepreneur, youth development innovator, and founder of the Boost Program, a comprehensive personal development curriculum designed to equip teens and young adults with the essential life, social, and mental health skills that traditional education overlooks. After selling his insurance firm for eight figures to a publicly held company, Rob witnessed firsthand the critical skill gaps plaguing today’s youth in the corporate workplace. This observation, combined with his desire to give his own children the tools they needed to thrive, inspired him to create a solution that didn’t exist.
Drawing from a century of personal development wisdomādistilling the teachings of Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and other thought leaders into accessible, actionable lessonsāRob developed Boost as the “missing course” for today’s youth.
Takeaways:
- The BOOST program to teach life skills that traditional schools often ignore.
- We deliver the curriculum in groups so students practice conversations, role play, and real interactions.
- Phone use has damaged most social and character skills and reduces face to face time.
- We teach resilience, mindset, and practical habits so young people learn to handle failure and grow.
- High engagement when lessons were made relevant to students and connected to their daily lives.
- We created the Boost Soft Skills Alliance to help educators share methods and scale the program globally.
- Simple steps like reducing phone time, videotaping practice, and creating schedules for focused social skill practice.
Chapters:
- 00:04 – Introducing Rob Heller ā Founder of the BOOST Program
- 02:04 – From Concerned Father to Founder ā How BOOST Began
- 12:28 – Launching the Boost Soft Skills Alliance
- 23:10 – Implementing the Program in Schools
- 30:45 – FIRE: Feedback, Inspiration, Resilience and Empowerment
https://boostprogram.com/
https://www.skool.com/boostsoftskillalliance
š„ Discover more about Education on Fire, get a FREE pdf of 10 guest resources.
https://www.educationonfire.com
š„ Support the show ā Buy me a coffee, Merch and Sponsorship Opportunities
https://www.educationonfire.com/support
#EducationOnFire
Show Sponsors ā
National Association for Primary Education (NAPE)
Their Primary First Journal: https://www.educationonfire.com/nape
English Program for Kids ā Night Zookeeper
FUN: There are thousands of engaging language arts activities for Grades 1 to 6 that your child can play independently.
COMPREHENSIVE: The program covers a full language arts curriculum of reading, writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, that rewards children as they progress.
TRACKABLE: A parent dashboard helps you track your child’s progress and enables you to set your own assignments.
PERSONALIZED: Children get written feedback from our team of tutors on their pieces of writing- so you don’t need to be the bad guy!
TRUSTED: An award winning program, used by thousands of homeschool families. Rated 4.7 on Trustpilot.