Well-Being: Should it be More Central In Schools?
Image from the Gross National Happiness Center Bhutan (https://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/). Image depicts the 9 domains used in Bhutan to measure Gross National Happiness, an alternative development scale to traditional GDP economic measures.
Bhutan’s Gross Domestic Happiness Index
In the 1970s, the 4th King of Bhutan coined the term "Gross Domestic Happiness" as a more holistic measure of a country's quality of life and development ("Gross National Happiness Index"). The term intentionally borrows from the term "Gross Domestic Product" (GDP), which is the leading macro-economic measurement used to evaluate a country's economic size. GDP is then commonly used to measure economic growth from one period to the next, as well as to measure the average living standard in that country by dividing the GDP by the country's population in a measure called GDP per capita. By coining the term Gross Domestic Happiness, the King of Bhutan was making the argument that GDP and GDP per capita, when used as the primary measures of the quality of life in a given country, are overly reductive. He was arguing that individual and social well-being cannot be measured merely by the productive capacity and value of that country's economy. In fact, there are economic activities that increase GDP, but can harm individual and social well-being. Increased prevalence of cancer can increase GDP as it generates greater economic output in terms of pharmaceuticals, chemo and radiation therapies and hospital stays. Poor air quality that leads to respiratory illnesses can also correspond to increased GDP. The poor air quality can be due to increased manufacturing output, which grows the GDP, but reduces the quality of life for those living in and around those manufacturing centers. The King of Bhutan was advocating for a socio-economic metric for guiding public policy that went beyond just economic output and growth. He wanted to measure whether or not people in his society were living happy lives, and he wanted to evaluate policy decisions based on whether or not they enhanced opportunities for happiness.
Bhutan's Gross Domestic Happiness policy is controversial. Some have suggested that, with its emphasis on happiness rather than economic growth, Bhutan's leaders deflected attention from the reality that Bhutan remained a poor and undeveloped country (McCarthy). Bhutan's annual GDP per capita remained below $700 USD throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s ("GDP per capita"). Others have pointed out that Bhutan projected an image of peace, happiness and contentment all the while forcing out 100,000 "southerners," people in Bhutan who spoke Nepali, through oppression and violence in what many have called an intentional act of ethnic cleansing (Frelick). Furthermore, by the UN World Happiness Report 2019, Bhutan ranked 95th out of 156 countries, not exactly blazing the path on national happiness (Helliwell et al.)
World Happiness Report
Despite its motivations and implementation, Bhutan's idea of measuring quality of life and development through a more holistic measure has -- I believe, rightly -- gained traction. As noted above, for example, the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network, headed by Columbia University economist Jeffery Sachs, annually publishes the World Happiness Report and advocates for sustainable development policies and initiatives that go beyond increasing economic productive output. This perspective played a role in the forming of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a set of holistic development objectives for the world by 2030. This all followed a 2011 UN General Assembly resolution (Resolution 65/209) calling on member countries to measure the happiness of its citizens and use it in the development, implementation and evaluation of policy decisions and then a 2012 UN High Level Meeting, co-chaired by then UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon and the then prime minister of Bhutan, called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm.
Martin Seligman and Positive Psychology
Beyond the realm of development studies, promotion of happiness as a measure for public policy has come from the field of positive psychology. Positive psychology argues that psychological research and therapy practice should focus not just on identifying and treating disorders, but should also help human individuals thrive and pursue a flourishing life. Though use of the term happiness is debated within the field, when used, the idea of pursuing happiness refers to the way that is was used by Aristotle. Aristotle's idea of happiness was defined by his term eudaimonia, which is about pursuing "the good life," or a flourishing life (Kraut). Below I will draw primarily on Martin Seligman, who is often considered the father of positive psychology; rather than happiness, he prefers the term "well-being," which he argues encompasses happiness, but goes beyond the common understanding of happiness as merely pleasurable emotions. Seligman, and others in the field, have argued that human well-being measures should be considered in public policy. The effectiveness of a policy should be judged in part by how well it promotes conditions for well-being in the society (Adler and Seligman).
Though I find fascinating the idea of human well-being as a measure for evaluating macro-public policy, it's not really my focus for this post. Rather, I want to discuss the role of well-being in schools. This is a topic that I've only begun to think about and so in the rest of this post, I want to merely ask and explore the question: Should a focus on happiness and well-being be more prominent in education? While relevant to education policy, I want to ask this question on a more philosophical level, so maybe the more precise question is: Should happiness and well-being be more central to why we learn and what we learn in school? Before I further explore this question, let me briefly outline the positive psychology theory of Seligman for the purpose of better understanding the components of human well-being.
Though in 2002 Seligman published a book where he outlined the research and developments in the field of positive psychology and titled it Authentic Happiness, he has since argued that the term happiness is not sufficient for describing a life of human flourishing (or Aristotle's eudaimonia). Whether merely semantical or not, Seligman argues that many people associate the term happiness with the idea of pleasurable emotions, which, he argues, are just one aspect of human well-being. The pursuit of positive emotions alone does not fully encompass what people view as living a fulfilling life. Seligman points out that many parents of young children rate themselves lower than their child-less peers on subjective happiness surveys, but when asked the question differently, they also rate parenting as a deeply fulfilling aspect of their lives. Raising children is valued by many as an important and worthwhile pursuit for a flourishing life, even though there are many less-than pleasurable moments while in the midst of it. For this reason, since the publication of his 2002 book, Seligman has expanded his theory of well-being to include five components, which he captures with the acronym PERMA. He has outlined this PERMA theory of well-being in his 2011 book titled Flourish.
Seligman’s PERMA Theory
The first of Seligman's five components of well-being -- the "P" of PERMA -- is Positive Emotions. These are the feelings typically associated with happiness. Other positive feeling terms like joy, contentment, satisfaction, and pride also fit in here. In positive psychology, these are not just fleeting feelings and not only found through pleasure-seeking activities. Research shows that our brain's reward system triggers these positive emotions when we're engaged even in non-hedonistic pursuits. For example, engaging in acts of compassion and generosity towards others can trigger in ourselves positive emotions, as can getting "carried away" in the flow of an activity that fully engages us, or mastering a skill through hard work and dedication. This is why happiness has often been used synonymously with well-being and the good life. These positive emotions are attached not just to the pursuit of momentary bodily pleasures, but are rooted in deep and meaningful social practices that provide meaning and fulfillment. This is what Seligman meant initially with his term "authentic happiness." However, Seligman argues that there are other dimensions of well-being and other ways to pursuit it; in fact, he argues that there are four other such components. Engagement in each of these may also produce positive emotions, but, Seligman argues, are also important for well-being in their own right.
The second of Seligman's PERMA components of well-being is Engagement. This one is based on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on Flow, a state that one achieves when engaged in an activity where one's skill perfectly aligns with the challenge of the activity. When one is in flow state, he or she is completely absorbed in the moment, loses track of time and space, and is hyper-focused on the task. Seligman argues that opportunities to engage in activities at this level are important for well-being. The third component in Seligman's PERMA model is Relationships. Having meaningful relationships with other people, whether it's close friendships, romantic partners, or family is vital to well-being. This was the conclusion of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a now 80 year longitudinal study of hundreds of adults that has concluded that healthy and happy relationships are the strongest predictor of life longevity and satisfaction (Mineo). The fourth component is Meaning, sometimes also referred to in the literature as "purpose." This is about contributing to something greater than yourself and feeling like your work and actions in the world serve a higher purpose. Though this is not the post to explore this in depth, I want to note that meaning is one of the lesser studied areas of well-being, but may be very significant. A Gallup global well-being poll, which measures well-being across five different domains (purpose, social, financial, community, and physical) has found the purpose element of well-being to be the lowest globally, with only 18% of respondents thriving in this domain (Standish and Witters). Lastly, the final letter in PERMA stands for Accomplishments. The opportunity to pursue and gain mastery in something -- to achieve something -- can, in itself, contribute to well-being.
Well-Being in Schools
Shifting now back to explore my question -- Should happiness and well-being be more central to why we learn and what we learn in school? -- I want to put this in the context of current discussions around the nature and purpose of learning in schools. At my most recent school, a place that has been embracing a relatively progressive approach to learning in recent years, discussions regarding the role and purpose of learning and schools have emphasized the dramatically changing world and the very different futures our current students will be facing. There's been discussion about the changing nature of work, the internet of things, Industry 4.0, and artificial intelligence. There have been conversations about the role of the digital world and the need for critical digital literacy skills for the sake of public discourse. Many experts, as they look into the future, argue that the era is now past where schools focused primarily on imparting knowledge. Humans today can find the facts and information they need at their fingertips through a quick internet search, or they can just ask Siri or Alexa to find the information for them. This has led to a shift in education towards learning that is focused on the skills and aptitudes that students will need to thrive in the world of the future. Some of these are still the tangible "hard" skills that are not new to schools: literacy, writing, speaking, and research, for example. But there's also a newer focus on less tangible, "soft" skills, or aptitudes. Together these have sometimes been labeled as 21st century skills. While there is no common agreement on what is meant by 21st century learning, the lists of skills usually include such things as critical thinking, problem solving, questioning, research, creativity, innovation, digital information literacy, perseverance, self-direction, adaptability, speaking and writing, leadership, and collaboration (Rich).
Another way that this shift in the focus of learning has been articulated is that students today, more than learning facts and information, need to "learn how to learn." The argument here is that the future will require life-long, adaptable learners and so, schools can best prepare students by equipping them with the skills and aptitudes for this life-long learning process. This requires that they become self-directed, have research and data analysis skills, know how to use tools for finding and evaluating information, can ask good questions, learn collaboratively with others, and be reflective about their own learning. The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) has articulated this through their programs as "Approaches to Learning" (ATLs) and has identified the following skill progressions as vital to learning-how-to-learn: communication skills, social skills, self-management skills, research skills, and thinking skills ("Approaches to Learning"). These discussions about the changing nature and purpose of learning in schools are important and I have no quarrel with the shift in focus away from acquiring knowledge to learning-how-to-learn. My goal is to broaden the focus, or reorient it a little, to bring forward the goal of individual human well-being or flourishing.
Despite the shift in the last decade or so to learning-to-learn skills, the larger purpose for learning in schools has not changed. Learning in schools is still largely driven by the goal of preparing students for future success in the economy (now global) and in the public life of society. This purpose has not changed; what has changed is the nature of what is required to be engaged citizens and economic actors in the world. Discussions about the world of the future, and the education students need now to prepare for it, are largely about the changing world of work, and sometimes also about shifts in the media and information landscape of the public sphere. For the most part, this purpose of learning in modern schooling arose from the Enlightenment and the development of political liberalism. One of the key tenants of liberalism is the separation of the public and the private. This gets articulated in different ways, but generally speaking, certain aspects of life, according to liberalism, are part of an individual's private domain, and therefore should remain separate from, and largely untampered by the public sphere. These areas of private life include one's individual leisure activities, one's family life, and one's religious beliefs and practices. This, for example, is where the liberal idea of "separation of church and state" arises. One's public life involves matters of government, politics, media and commerce. Of course, this is a very quick and generalized outline of the liberal public vs. private separation, but I think it's sufficient to put my point in context.
The development of schools as institutions, specifically as public, government institutions, but schools as liberal education institutions generally, largely developed for the purpose of preparing students for the public sphere as citizens, members of society, and as participants in the economy. We often talk about the purpose of K-12 education as college and career readiness. It's about preparing students for future economic life. This may mean post-secondary education first, but, ultimately it's about a means of financial livelihood, or perhaps something more meaningful that we call a career. This is the starting point of the Common Core State Standards in the US, for example. Sometimes a third C is added (at least for us Social Studies teachers) and we talk about preparation for college, career and civic life. For the most part, schools founded in the liberal education tradition have tended to stay out of matters of private life. I am not opposed to the tradition of liberal education; in fact, though I'm not naive to think that liberalism is the route to universal global peace and prosperity, broadly speaking, I consider myself a "liberal" in the John Locke sense of the term. My purpose in outlining the liberal roots of modern education is to provide context for why, I think, aspects of Seligman's PERMA theory of well-being feel awkward in discussions about learning in schools. Individual happiness, the pursuit of the good life, life meaning and purpose, and the importance of intimate relationships are not typically part of a liberal education. These are topics that may be relevant to school counselors and may come up in school social-emotional advisory programs, but they're not typically at the forefront when we talk about curriculum, or the overarching purpose of learning in schools. But maybe they should be?
We could argue that greater attention to well-being is important in schools because of, what some have coined, a crisis of despair in society. It is true that there is some data, at least in the US, to suggest an increase in anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide, including among adolescents. The US Centers for Disease Control, which tracks causes of mortality in the US, has reported a 33% increase in death by suicide in the US from 1999 to 2019 ("Suicide"). If one breaks down the data by age, the CDC data shows an increase in suicide rates for 15 - 24 year-olds from 4.5 suicides / 100,000 population in 1950 to 14.5 / 100,000 in 2018 ("Table 9"). That's a more than three-fold increase. The term "crisis of despair" comes in part from a 2015 paper by Princeton University's Ann Case and Angus Deaton about rising "deaths of despair" in the US, which they included as deaths from opioid overdose, alcohol poisoning and suicide. Rates of youth depression have also been a major concern. One study published in 2018 found that rates of depression among those ages 12 to 17 increased from 8.7% to 12.7% between 2005 and 2015 (Weinberger). While these statistics are definitely concerning, I'm not sure the data conclusively points to a crisis. Case and Deaton's "deaths of despair" paper (and subsequent book) identified a concern in the US among a specific demographic segment of white males without college degrees. If you look closer at the CDC suicide rate data, though the 2018 data definitely shows an upward trend since the early 2000s, the data in the decade prior was quite similar to now. As for increases in reported anxiety and depression, I think adolescents today are more aware of these issues and more comfortable with self-reporting them, which must be considered when comparing to previous decades when the sense of stigma around mental health was greater. I don't wish to diminish these issues, nor do I want to ignore that the Covid-19 pandemic has heightened many of these mental health concerns, but I also don't want to root my argument for more attention to well-being in schools just in this fear of a crisis of adolescent despair.
I'd prefer to ground my point in the overarching purpose of learning in schools. Maybe rather than learning in order to succeed in the future world of work, rather than learning for college and career, even rather than learning for citizenship and engagement in public life, we need to reconnect a little to Aristotle and the idea of eudaimonia? Maybe we need to reorient our purpose for learning to a level above those other important objectives; maybe we need to reconsider the goal of a flourishing life, a "good life," a happy and meaningful life, as the purpose of learning in schools? Maybe we need to consider Seligman's five criteria for a theory of human well-being and ask ourselves how these can permeate what we do in schools? Maybe we should be focused on teaching and learning that fosters current student well-being, while also helping students develop the understanding, skills and strategies for the pursuit of a flourishing life in the future? Of course, the ability to support oneself financially through employment is important for life-satisfaction, and a meaningful career can be important for happiness. The skills and aptitudes for engaged participation in society are important for well-being, both individual and for society. But maybe all of these worthwhile goals for education fall into better alignment under the larger objective of present and future human flourishing?
How Might it Look?
The next big question is: What would this actually look like in schools? I'll be honest that I'm not completely prepared to answer this question, but I do have a few very preliminary ideas to consider. Perhaps part of what this looks like is being more deliberate about the overarching goal of well-being at the level of school-wide vision statements. If a school's vision statement truly guided its direction, and well-being was central in that vision, then it would rest at the forefront of each and every strategic decision. Decisions about hiring, courses offered, academic programs, scheduling, facilities, extracurricular activities, connections between home, school and community, discipline policies, assessment policies -- proceeding all of these would be the question: Does this create more opportunity for our students to flourish and develop the skills and aptitudes for a future pursuit of well-being? On this level, maximizing well-being would become the purpose of policy decisions within schools. But if the pursuit of well-being is to be the over-arching goal of learning in schools, it also needs to be embedded in the curriculum; it needs to be learned explicitly. Students need to engage in the philosophy, theory and science surrounding well-being and have opportunities to reflect on their own lives and practice well-being strategies.
I suspect that many will immediately think about their school advisory programs. Many schools have a program of advisory classes that serve as a sort of expanded homeroom and are intended to help build a sense of community and create a space for a more social-emotional advisee relationship between a teacher and a small group of students. Advisory programs could be a great space to develop learning around the theory and science of well-being. I think the key, however, is that the learning must be explicit. Students must not just participate in activities related to well-being; they must engage the theory and science behind it. They must not just practice the "what" or even the "how", but also be immersed in the "why". Of course this needs to be cognitively appropriate, but they must read, discuss and debate the content at a philosophical, theoretical, and scientific level. What did the ancients say about happiness? What have religious and philosophical traditions taught about the good life? How have studies in positive psychology informed our understanding of well-being? What does brain science show us about the relationship between certain well-being practices and our brain's emotional reward system? How do theories in evolutionary biology explain human well-being? While on paper, this could work to forefront well-being in the learning of schools, the school advisory programs that I've seen are often viewed by students as an "add-on" to their school experience. Rather than residing at the core of what schools are about, advisory programs are often peripheral at best, and often more of an "after-thought."
What I envision -- and I'm approaching this from a high school perspective -- is something more like the Theory of Knowledge component of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP). For those unfamiliar with the IBDP, the program has three components at its core, all of which are requirements for the diploma, but are set apart from the typical credit courses taken by students. These are Theory of Knowledge, the Extended Essay and CAS (Creative, Action and Service). These components are not done as standard courses, nor are they assessed using standard measures and grades, but they are essential, and all students must complete these components. While schools have some flexibility with how they do the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) component, at my most recent school, it was a regular class taken by 11th and 12th grade students over 3 semesters (as opposed to 4 semesters for their regular academic courses). Though it was required and essential (almost considered a "right of passage", of sorts, for students in the DP), it was considered a pass/fail course only, with no transcript grade assigned, and not factored into a GPA. Students had to complete it ("pass"), but it was intentionally set up to be lower stakes to promote student reflection, creativity and experimentation without the pressure of a grade. Within the IBDP, the goal is for TOK and "TOK-thinking" to serve as a sort of umbrella over the larger curriculum; teachers are encouraged to bring TOK-thinking and questions into their courses and students are encouraged to reflect on their learning in their courses through the epistemological lens of TOK. I think, in a similar fashion, it would be powerful to embed a course of study, one in which participation and engagement is a requirement, but where the stress of a grade and traditional assessment is removed, into the core of a high school diploma that focuses explicitly on the theory and science of well-being. To provide continuity over a student's high school career, this core course could be a three semester program; students would take it for one semester in 9th grade, one semester in 10th grade, and then one semester in 11/12th grade (my idea here is to align it with the IBDP in 11/12th grade; it would coincide with the TOK course, so 3 semesters of TOK and 1 of this well-being program would round out 4 semesters). As with TOK in the IBDP, this well-being course would be set up as an umbrella over the rest of the high school curriculum, and students would be encouraged to see all of their high school learning through this lens of the pursuit of a flourishing life.
There are examples of courses already out there that could be adapted to a high school level for this. In previous posts I've talked about the course on Coursera from Yale University called "The Science of Well-Being." There's another widely popular online course on EdX from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center called "The Science of Happiness." I've recently been most intrigued by a course taught through the Yale Center for Faith & Culture called "Life Worth Living" and a subsequent course called "Education and the Life Worth Living." The initial course explores both ancient and modern perspectives, from both philosophical and religious traditions, on what it looks like to live a life worth living. The subsequent course explores the purpose of education and learning within a life worth living. The course description for the "Education and the Life Worth Living" course asks the question: "What is an education for? What does it have to do with real life—not just any life, but a life worth living?" It then describes the course by saying, "We will explore these questions through engagement with the visions of five very different ways of imagining the good life and, therefore, of imagining education" ("Education").
I can imagine a 3-4 semester course of study, set up as a core component of learning, focused on the goal of human flourishing as the purpose of learning, modeled on elements of these examples listed above. Each semester could take a different focus, so that the program built on itself and the cognitive development of the students over the high school years. It would also be multi-disciplinary, drawing on psychology and the human sciences, the biology of the human brain and body, philosophy, literature and the arts. I envision learning that involves readings, discussions, Socratic seminars, and reflections. Perhaps each semester would culminate with some sort of personal exhibition or presentation that required students to discuss what a life worth living meant to them and present their developing strategies for pursuing that vision of the good life.
Though I'm still pondering the larger implications of putting the pursuit of human flourishing at the core of learning in schools, I think I can at least respond in the affirmative to the questions I set out to explore. Should a focus on happiness and well-being be more prominent in education? Yes. Should happiness and well-being be more central to why we learn and what we learn in school? Definitely.
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