The Guardian presents arguments for both sides of the fence. I find I agree more with Dr. Frank Furedo, who comes down on the “No” side of the argument:
In schools, decades of silly programmes designed to raise children’s self-esteem have not improved wellbeing, and the new initiatives designed to make pupils happy will also fail. Worse still, emotional education encourages an inward-looking orientation that distracts children from engaging with the world…
As Franklin D Roosevelt said, happiness “lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort”. Students can learn about their emotions, develop a sense of self and, occasionally, experience happiness through engaging with literature, art and other intellectual challenges, but not by being instructed on how to feel, or how to manage emotions.
Most miserable people are preoccupied with their feelings. Most happy people are filled with self-forgetfulness.
The little secrets that encourage happiness can be taught and are regularly taught by good families. They mostly involve being good and true. Sound doctrine solves a thousand problems.
Adolescence isn’t the happiest stage of life, in large part because self-awareness is new and lots of teens think of themselves first in many situations where it would be more responsible to think of the family or the team or the class. Still, they can be guided toward happiness through community-centered rather than student-centered approaches.
The trouble with schools operating in public space is that all things good and true are under constant attack by people who do not really want there to be any standard of goodness, so that they can feel as good as anyone, regardless of what they do.
It’s not the schools’ job to teach children to be happy. This is just one more nonsensical thing about which some schools are concerned that distract them form their primary job of teaching skills and content.
Michael L,
Isn’t “student centered” one of the buzz phrases that educaters use now? If so, wouldn’t that make promoting adolescent happiness impossible?
I am not fan of teaching happiness. I think we should try to prevent depression. If I could teach happiness I could be a very rich man.
I agree with anon, public schools should be focusing on teaching academics, not how to be happy. Part of the problem with our public schools today is we ask them to do too many things.
Part of my point was that trying to teach happiness directly won’t work and is foolish.
But teaching the secrets that encourage happiness is central to good education: be honest, study reality, be kind, brush your teeth, discipline yourself, take care of things. . .
Everyone in the US should be compelled at a young age, say upon graduating high school, to spend two years in a Siberian labor camp a la Stalinist Russia. After that part of one’s education is over and he comes home, he will be happy without ever having had to be taught how to be happy.