Abstract
As a 17 year old in 1966, the then Prince Charles, spent two terms at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. He described the experience as the best part of his secondary schooling, and formative of his character. The School was founded in the 1850s as an educational institution of the Anglican Church. By the twenty-first century it became a leading exponent globally of the Positive Education (PE) movement, which has its foundation in Positive Psychology (PP). Critics of PE have argued that it diminishes, even supersedes, the tenets of the School’s Anglican tradition. This paper tests the School’s assertion of the complementarity of both. It does so using an historical approach comparing the content of sermons delivered by the School’s Senior Chaplain in the 1980s with that of the principal reference text for Positive Education: Positive Education: the Geelong Grammar School Journey. It argues the significant overlap between the themes of the sermons and the elements of PE. One implication is that, had Charles been a current student of the School, he may have found even greater affirmation of his inherent character strengths than he did almost fifty years ago.
Recommended Citation
Summerfield, Elizabeth
(2023)
"King Charles' Character Education: His Australian School, now and then,"
The Journal of Values-Based Leadership: Vol. 16
:
Iss.
2
, Article 19.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22543/1948-0733.1459
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol16/iss2/19
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