Schools, Happiness and Flourishing

When my children asked me what I wanted for them in later life, I used to (and still am tempted) to say “What I most want, more than anything else is for you to be happy”. But one of them once pointed out – with a big smile as she knew she had me – “But Daddy, lots of ice cream makes me very happy”.

My children have re-visited that little event many times; and so have I as an educator – especially when students know that some things really are worth some very hard graft, when it’s not always a great deal of fun. But that’s OK, because the lovely thing here is that in nearly all cases, children and students know that actually, happiness is not always the right goal.

Watching our students grow through difficulties, usually meeting or exceeding, but occasionally failing to meet their aspirations, it seems clear to me that the Greeks had it right when they saw flourishing as the desirable state. Flourishing is not opposed to happiness, but perhaps flourishing is better, richer, less prone to over-index on a single emotional state. It’s not so focussed on the self, and it avoids the self-defeating hedonic treadmill. Historian John Armstrong writes “Happiness suggests an buoyant inner state of sensation of well-being. But of course that’s not enough – indeed those who have that sensation of well-being when it is totally undeserved are particularly galling” and he is right. What we want to see is the sensation of well-being that arises from knowing that one has given one’s best to a good cause, and stretched one’s capacities – which is often to say, grown as a person – in doing so.

Now most schools are in the business of stretching capacities, and most students give of their best at least some of the time. But not all schools manage to think about their cause, the ultimate goal of schooling, and whether or not it’s a good cause. For example; it probably makes people happy to achieve superb exam results, or attend a specific wonderful College – but if that’s the ultimate cause, then achieving it seems to be somewhat distant from the notion of flourishing.  Nothing wrong with (indeed a good deal right with) exam results in the short-term of course, but because they are just measures of important things – more means than ends – they are closer ice cream than nourishment. Nice to have, not fundamental goods.

A seven-year-old who wants to work in an ice cream van when she is grown up is making a guess (expressed as a desire) about what a flourishing life might involve, and what the details might look like. We smile because we know that with further experience, self-knowledge and maturity, the picture of a good life undergoes dramatic revision – but a great many of our desires have this character. Armstrong speaks to us all when he notes that for children “the hypothesis of a flourishing life will be reoriented to filmmaking, investment banking or public charity worker” and asks “Are these theses more accurate?”. It’s a great question, and one that repays re-visiting from time to time. Again, we need to avoid being confused between our fundamental aims and the means to achieve them. For our students, and indeed for all of us, the choice of what line of work to take, and how to attend to that work, is one of a constellation of important choices which should mean that they – and those they influence – are more likely to flourish. And then happiness should follow.

Reference
Armstrong, J., (2010) In Search of Civilisation: London: Penguin Books