Creative and positive education with evidence-based effective outcomes: national and regional impacts on policies, school teachers and educational practitioners

Over the past 20 years, Dr Yue and his team have studied and implemented positive psychology and positive and creativity education in Chinese society. They have developed an impressive track record of publications in both English and Chinese, and have implemented projects that promote the concepts and practices of creative/positive education among secondary school students in such places as Linzi, in Shandong province (山東省臨淄市) in 2015-2017, and Daishan, in Zhejiang province (浙江省岱山縣) in 2017-2019. Their work has been highly appreciated and commended both locally and nationally.

Dr Yue pioneered cultural studies on the perception of creativity and creative persons in Chinese society and proposed meritorious evaluation bias theory to account for the Chinese lack of respect for ordinary creativity. This theory neatly explains why the Chinese prefer meritorious salience over aesthetic salience when they perceive the utility of creativity and creative individuals in Chinese society. Dr Yue identified a similar pattern in the Chinese perception of humour and humourists, proposing Chinese ambivalence to humour theory to elucidate the Chinese devaluation of humour throughout Chinese history. In later studies, Dr Yue also found a positive association between creativity, humour and subjective happiness among Chinese young people in Hong Kong and mainland Chinese cities.

To apply his empirical findings to educational practices, Dr Yue designed and supervised the implementation of the Creative and Positive Mind project in different Chinese cities. This project sought to enhance the brain functions for creativity in school learning and positivity for secondary school children dealing with stress. For example, the Linzi Creative and Happy Education Project was created for the Department of Education, Linzi County, Shandong (山東省臨淄市) in 2015-2017. Sixty local secondary school teachers were selected to participate in this project. A team of four specialists provided training and consultation for the project, including Dr Yue. The training and consultation included the following: (1) a series of two-day workshops covering 10 modules about creativity, effective learning and problem-solving and subjective happiness for both students and teachers; (2) supervision of trainees on how to implement what they learned in class to help students thrive academically and psychologically in school; (3) pre-and-post-tests to assess the effectiveness of the training for the teachers and students who participated in the project; (4) public talks for the parents of students who joined the project. Approximately 3,000 students benefitted from the project.

To help implement the project, three books were especially written in Chinese and published by the Shanghai People’s Press: Appreciating Your Brain《欣賞你的大腦》, Sculpturing Your Brain 《雕塑你的大腦》, and Dr Brain Teaches You How to be Successful Parents《腦博士教你如何做家長: 走進多元智能》. By enhancing the students’ brain functions for learning and dealing with stress, the project resulted in satisfactory results for their school accomplishments. The project was highly commended by the local government. Similarly, the Daishan Creative and Happy Education Project was created for the Department of Education, Daishan County, Zhejiang (浙江省岱山縣) in 2017-2019. It followed a similar format to the Linzi project and included the same team of specialists.

Dr Yue’s work is well-documented in Chinese books and his counselling techniques for social workers, psychological counsellors, school teachers, parents and the like can be found in video form. Dr Yue has run numerous workshops for educators and school teachers in Taiwan, Macau and mainland China. Currently, 263,000 results can be found under Yue Xiaodong 岳曉東) in Baidu search (百度), and 94,400 results can be found for him in Google search. His works have evidently contributed to the enhancement of learning capacity and subjective happiness among school children in China. As such, in January 2017, Dr Yue was nominated as one of the top 50 most influential psychologists in China (S9) by Psychology One, a leading psychology web company for acknowledging his positive psychology accomplishments such as below:

• Having received twice the Outstanding Contribution Award (2007, 2001) by the Chinese Association of Mental Health for helping to promote counselling psychology and mental education in China.
• Having been invited to make positive-psychology/happiness TV programs, such as by CCTV (中央電視臺), Beijing TV (北京電視臺), Shanghai TV (上海電視臺), and the like.
• Having received twice the International Monica Humanitarian Award for his contribution to training of professionals who helped with victims of the earth quakes in May 12, 2008 in Wenchuan, Sichuan (5.12 四川汶川大地震) as well as in April 14, 2010 in Yushu, Qinghai (4.14青海玉樹大地震).
• Having been featured by CCTV for his victim relief of the Wenchuan earthquake, particularly for his inspiring talk given to victim students who would take part in the University-entrance examination a month later. for which he even received a personal appreciation card from principal Luo Xuewen (羅學文) of Luoshui Secondary School of Shifang City (什邡市 洛水中學).
• Having received the Outstanding Contribution Award by the China’s Youth and Adolescents Development Centre for fighting Internet Addiction (中國青少年成長基地頒發).