"I did not put you here to suffer
I did not put you here to whine
I put you here to love one another
And to get out and have a good time."
-
The Rainmakers
A False Start
A few years ago, I presented to a group of education
professionals at a university in Dubai on the topic:
“2020 and beyond: what our students need to thrive and
survive”.
The brief was to focus on 21st Century Skills,
digital technology and entrepreneurship. “OK,” I thought – “should be
easy enough to knock something together.”
But it wasn’t. It took me ages to write the presentation as I agonized
over the thought that was nagging at me, gnawing away somewhere at the back of
my brain. Of course, I dutifully produced lots of stats on the importance of
SMEs, the rise of the entrepreneur and the importance of digital skills. All
good so far, but the dreamer in me just couldn’t get away from the growing
realization that this just wasn’t enough – not for my own children, not for any
child.
The question nagging at me was one that so often crops up in
many a visioning exercise, and it’s a big one:
“What is the purpose of education?”
It’s not a new question, of course and, put on the spot in
another presentation once, I remembered saying something along the lines of:
“The purpose of education is to uncover every child’s gifts
and to nurture those gifts into talents that will ensure maximum life chances.”
I knew what I meant, but it still somehow seemed inadequate.
Incomplete. Impractical. Deep down, I knew what I wanted to say: that the true
purpose of education is to empower our children to become happy adults. I also
knew that this would most likely be viewed as woolly and lacking in substance.
(Indeed, when David Cameron issued his ‘Happiness Survey’ a year later, he was
widely mocked for these very reasons. It
could be argued that there are many reasons to mock Mr. Cameron – but to be
fair to the former UK Prime Minister, I don’t think is one of them – as we
shall see).
Nevertheless, I decided to take a risk and go with happiness
as the proposed answer to ‘what our students need to thrive and survive.’
In the hope that the audience would back me before I
committed myself, I posed what I thought would be a leading question that would
elicit the answer I wanted and give me an easy ride for the rest of the
presentation:
“What do you want for your own children?”
I had rather hoped that the word ‘happy’ would feature in at
least some of the responses collected on my beautifully designed Padlet wall -
but it didn’t. Not once. Some came close:
“I
want him to grow up as a responsible & content adult and to do that I would
like to be able to give him a good education that will enable him to do that.”
“To
fulfill their dreams which meets their basic necessities and gives them
professional growth and success and helps them to be independent.”
“Quality
education that will enable her to be an expert in the field she chooses and ensure a secure
future for her and her family.”
“To
be independent, get the know-how and be able to choose the best for themselves.
So, I encourage them to be more reflective thinkers, enquirers and connect with
others.”
“To
grow independent, responsible and respected in any field to catch their
dreams.”
“I
want them to follow their passion, whatever that may be.”
Close
– but no cigar. Perhaps it was the ‘professional’ environment in which we were
having the discussion, but it seemed that no one could bring themselves to say
straight out that they wanted their children to be happy. Surely if they were
asked at a dinner party, or even by their own children, this is what they’d
say?
Disappointed,
but not defeated, I went on with the presentation. After all, the responses
alluded to my upcoming Maslow slide – AND I had John Lennon up my sleeve!
Despite having Lennon on my side, the final response on closing was as I had feared.
Respectful because I guess everyone loves a dreamer, but impractical as a
tangible outcome that could be articulated and implemented in schools. If I
could sum up the faces and atmosphere in reaction to my focus on happiness, it
would be simply “That’s nice.”
I had failed and I must admit that, for a while afterwards,
I gave up this approach in subsequent presentations. It was clear that happiness
was not really a thing in the brutal world of exam results, grades, rankings,
competition for university places and jobs, and the almost immovable
traditional curriculum structure and hierarchy.
A New Hope – and a Word of
Caution
But the nagging did not go away and, in the few years since
then, some remarkable things have happened that have given me the heart to
revive this approach and to start to look at giving happiness the practicality
and academic rigour it obviously requires if it is to succeed as being seen as
the real goal of schools.
1.
People started publishing
high profile surveys about the happiest countries and ‘most livable’ cities –
with the indicators clearly articulated. Forbes ranks Norway as the happiest
country and the Central African Republic as the unhappiest – a country in which
more than 10% of children die in their first year.
2.
People started talking
about ‘Positive Education’ as the positive psychology movement began to find
its way into schools.
3.
People started publishing
papers with titles such as ‘Happy Schools! A Framework for Learner Well-being
in the Asia-Pacific’ (UNESCO, 2016).
4.
People such as Marc Prensky
started challenging the traditional structure of school curricula, actually
suggesting viable, if bold, alternatives.
5.
People, or rather Finland (!)
actually began implementing a radical restructuring of a national curriculum.
And everyone loves Finland, right?
6.
People like
http://www.youhue.com/ started making ‘Mood’
software for schools to measure happiness levels and gather data on emotional
states.
7.
People in education have
started talking about the Sustainable Development Goals in schools, with
children. Goal 4 states: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and
promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Anthony Salcito, VP Worldwide Education at Microsoft, has even stated that: "We should be deploying technology in the service of teaching children to deliver the sustainable development goals."
8.
People here in Dubai
(again, the government, or rather KHDA, the local education regulator), employed
a ‘Director of Happiness’ and made a bold policy statement that schools had a
duty to make their students ‘happy’. We now have a ‘National Programme for
Happiness and Positivity’.
I applaud all of these initiatives but the last one in
particular makes me nervous. Not because it’s a bad idea. It’s a great
idea. The reason it makes me nervous is
because of the tendency for the education profession to either bolt on or dumb
down such ideas, without fully understanding the underlying theory or making
the bold, difficult, transformational changes necessary to really make them
work and have serious, sustained impact. There are many examples:
Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences was reduced to the
now discredited ‘Learning Styles’ of the Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic
student. ‘VAK’ posters appeared in classrooms everywhere and there were endless
tests issued to children so they could discover what sort of learner they were.
The impact was pretty much zero – probably less than zero when the real
learning time lost to this is accounted for.
Carol Dweck’s impressive work on growth mindsets was leapt
on by educators and parents, suddenly going all out to praise effort at the
expense of outcomes. Dweck never said outcomes don’t matter. They really do.
Marc Prensky’s 2001 paper on Digital Natives was widely
misconstrued as suggesting that today’s learners knew more about technology
than their teachers, so we could just let them get on with it. iPads flooded
classrooms with little real thought as to how the curriculum or pedagogy would
need to change to ensure ROI in terms of learning outcomes. Prensky in fact
never said we could leave digital natives to their own devices (literally or
metaphorically).
All three academics above have had to spend time clarifying
their messages, which have been so widely misinterpreted and misapplied.
And so we come to the happiness agenda in schools. Let me
say it again: it’s a good idea – and there has already been some great work
done in this area. But, as educators, we must take a deep breath and think
carefully about what happiness really means and how it can be achieved and
sustained. If anyone thinks I’m
scaremongering, I would point out that we are already seeing examples of the
‘add-on’ approach, with little consideration of the underlying theory and how
we could reimagine the curriculum. Schools suddenly now have:
·
Happiness Corridors (can
students be happy elsewhere in the school, or just in that corridor?)
·
Happiness Days – seriously.
Are the other days miserable? Reminds me of ‘Safer Internet Days’. As an aside,
I would think about banning any event with the words ‘Day’ or ‘Hour’ in the
title: Eco Day, Book Day, Hour of Code, Genius Hour, Earth Hour/Day and so on.
The fact that we have to do this surely proves it’s not embedded in the
curriculum. My particular favourite is Sports Day. Most children love a
well-planned, fun Sports Day – arguments about winning and losing, medals and
competition aside – but these children also love PE. My children have PE once a
week and Sports Day once a year. Please don’t tell me they are happy with that
– I know they’re not! As adults, we know
we should exercise every day but we are teaching our children that it is
something we timetable once or twice a week plus, perhaps, some voluntary
extra-curricular activities – clearly an ‘add-on’ and not something that is, in
fact, central to lifelong health and happiness. I wouldn’t give a school even
an acceptable rating if the children didn’t have some form of PE every day.
Then we’d know that ‘health and happiness’ were truly valued.
·
Happiest School
competitions – with the winners, assessed via short video submissions,
announced in the media. One can only hope this does not lead to league tables –
imagine being at the bottom, labelled as the ‘Most Miserable School in the
Country’, based on inevitably suspect evidence. I can see the Daily Mail
headline now.
·
Endless adverts on the
radio, each promising that the school in question has ‘a culture… underpinned
by the science of positive education’, or ‘promotes happiness’ or ‘puts the
children’s well-being first’ and so on. Again, I hope it’s all true, I really
do. But as these soundbites have only just started to appear this month, in a
sudden flood of happiness, I simply cannot believe a culture of
happiness has been embedded in school curricula since the KHDA announcement.
·
And finally, this being
Dubai, we now really do have this...
(I do like the idea of there being a North and South, indicating there may be more than one route to happiness...)
Getting Serious about
Happiness
I really don’t want to be critical of schools. Leaders and
teachers want the best outcomes for their students and they work incredibly
hard at it. They are also under tremendous pressure to improve their inspection
ratings, a process which now requires them to prove their happiness – so the
clamour for highly visible, quick wins is understandable. Happiness is on the map and that’s a good
thing. People are talking about it with children, who know that being happy is
important – but we can’t expect it to just happen, to last and to be evenly
distributed, without doing a lot more. Indeed, there are already some
outstanding examples of curriculum development producing tangible outcomes for
students, such as the ‘Tolerance and Generosity Curriculum’ at GEMS Kindergarten
Starters in Dubai. This highly innovative school is starting to go further than
simply adding happiness and global citizenship to the existing curriculum.
Rather, we are beginning to see the notion of ‘service’ being embedded in the
curriculum and projects, which I believe is an important and admirable step.
I don’t agree with Lott’s 3-point plan, but his message of
futility in teaching happiness as an add-on to an ineffective model that itself
is often a cause of misery, is valid.
One of the Dubai radio adverts mentioned above states: “As
parents, we all have high aspirations for our children and want them to be
successful - but most of all, we want them to be happy.” The school claims to
offer “a strong values-based approach to learning.” It goes on: “Our school
nurtures happy, successful, resilient and confident global citizens” and
finishes with the claim that this is where “…today’s learners become tomorrow’s
leaders.” Powerful stuff and it
certainly sounds like somewhere I’d like my own children to be. In truth, I
doubt this school’s curriculum is significantly different to any other. And it
is still an English National Curriculum School, which takes us back to Lott’s
Vlad the Impaler analogy above. Again, I am NOT criticizing this school. It’s
better to do something than nothing – but I do believe that the changes needed
are more fundamental.
If we are serious about happiness, I suggest that we need
to also get serious about creating a curriculum model that ensures this is a
lasting outcome and not just the latest educational fad. So yes, let’s make
sure our schools, teachers, students and parents are happy. And yes, let’s try
and measure it. But first of all, we need to know what happiness really is –
and then work on the model to achieve it. We also need to draw a clear
distinction between the desire for children to be happy at school and home (and
therefore better at learning, as the argument goes) and lifelong happiness as
an achievable goal for all. It is the latter that I really want to focus on, as
this speaks to the notion of happiness as a goal of education rather
than just a facilitator of learning in the K-12 years.
I live in the UAE. In
the land of Malls, Maids and Maseratis, I do fear that the goal of ‘happiness’
will all too easily be misconstrued as the pursuit of some hedonistic Utopia,
where we live the life of H.G. Wells’s future humans in The Time Machine -
lazy, ignorant cattle with all our needs catered for; a life of leisure and no
work - but of course there is always a price. For Wells’s tribe, this price was
the intermittent risk of being taken by the hideous Morlocks, a species that
had evolved to be the farmers, in a world where humans were the livestock.
In such circumstances, of course these humans could not be
truly happy. We are programmed to work.
We are programmed to contribute to our society, on whatever that scale may be –
the cave, tribe, country, or, as is our current reality, today’s connected
world. We are programmed to take control of our own destinies and to earn our
happiness - and this is where we begin to see the real potential juxtaposition of
curriculum content and the outcome of ‘happiness’. We cannot treat our children with kid gloves
and we cannot ever let them believe the world owes them something - just as
many educators have misconstrued Dweck’s work as meaning that only the process
and not the outcomes matter. Dweck knows that process is not enough and we must
be clear that ‘happiness as an-add on to the curriculum’ is not enough. Children must learn that success and
happiness are a product of sustained hard work and also that they have a
lifelong duty to an equitable global society. This is how they will better
their world. Indeed, I do believe this is the goal of the UAE policy makers,
who recognise the essential role of hard work in achieving happiness. The
danger is that this becomes lost in translation as schools look to make their
children happy. I know that my own proudest moments as a teacher all correspond
to students achieving beyond what they thought possible, by working harder and
for longer than they ever have before, on something that really mattered to
them, something they cared about deeply on a personal level. They have been in
control, in flow and, by the end, exhausted. And they have, at that point in
time, ‘become all they can be.’ It may
be dangerous to speak of happiness as a ‘right’. It is surely better that we
teach our children the reality – that happiness must be earned.
The Goal of Education and
the Enduring Relevance of Maslow
So what really is the ‘goal’ of education – and how can it
be articulated?
Buoyed by the surge of happiness initiatives, I started to
reintroduce this into my presentations and workshops. I knew by now there were
two key components:
1.
Self-actualisation for
every individual; and
2.
The recognition that each
of us has a wider duty to better our world and serve others.
It is arguably implicit in Maslow’s explanation of
self-actualisation (and even the lower level of esteem) that those achieving
this level of becoming all one can be would also naturally respect, if not
actively work for, the benefit of others. Maslow believed that self-actualised
people were accepting of others and the world.
But there’s something about the word ‘self’ that leads me to believe
this is not sufficiently explicit to make the self-actualisation level
sufficient as a societal goal. There is not quite enough in that level to
guarantee that even the self-actualised person will necessarily work positively
towards the welfare of all others, i.e. the global society. Indeed, Maslow’s
‘self’ was seen as ‘sovereign and inviolable’ and self-actualisation has
therefore been described as ‘healthy narcissism’ (Pauchant et al, 1991). Fortunately, Maslow actually went further,
developing the concept of ‘self-transcendence’.
“Self Transcendence
refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human
consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to
significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature,
and to the cosmos.” (The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
, New York, 1971, p. 269.)
So self-transcendence builds on individual self-actualisation,
thereby providing the final level of the model and the second component of the
goal of education.
Criticisms of Maslow’s work have focused mostly on the
hierarchy itself, although I do not believe these are sufficiently convincing
or relevant to dismiss his work as being non-applicable to a curriculum model.
Certainly, it is likely that a person must have achieved self-actualisation and
be secure in the lower levels to progress to self-transcendence. So
self-actualisation remains critical. GEMS Chief Academic Officer and former head
of Eton College, Tony Little, was asked recently about the outcomes achieved
for his students at Eton. He responded by saying that “Every student leaves
knowing what they are good at and what they can achieve.” This is important when we consider initiatives
such as “Every Child Matters,” “Every Student Succeeds” and “No Child Left
Behind.” Such policies, although
well-meant, have tended to focus on a core, traditional skillset that
governments have decided will serve every child. There has, as a result, been a
further narrowing of the curriculum to focus on traditional literacy and
numeracy skills, with scant regard for true personalization of learning. There
is a huge difference between personalizing learning programmes for children so
that they achieve the same, or minimum outcomes in literacy and mathematics on
the one hand, and truly personalized learning, which empowers every child to
discover and develop their gifts as they strive towards self-actualisation.
At least three great thinkers seem to agree:
“There is a major difference when we focus on the ‘learner’,
instead of the ‘learning’. A subtle
shift that needs to be made in education.” – George Couros
“We
must meet the real needs of every child – not just in core subjects, but in
their real aptitudes, gifts and desires.” – Tom Friedman
“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to
secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” - John Dewey
Also, a
UN General Assembly Resolution (2011) states simply: “The pursuit of happiness
is a fundamental human goal.”
Given the focus on Maslow, a new statement of the goal of
education may be:
“The educated person is the one who is equipped with the
values, attributes, skills and knowledge to live a lifetime of
self-actualization and self-transcendence.”
This is the definition I started to use before I heard Sir
Ken Robinson at BETT 2017 convey much the same meaning in his statement:
“The purpose of education is to enable students to
understand the world around them and the talents within them, so they can
become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens” – Sir Ken
Robinson (2017).
This succinctly and simply articulates the two key
components stated above, representing Maslow’s hierarchy in its entirety,
including the top level of self-transcendence. Breaking it down further, Sir
Ken has actually provided even further clarification of both the goal and the
method.
This is important and timely if we think about happiness as
a lifelong outcome. I also believe it is measurable in a meaningful way at a
very large scale. I will make three
simple assertions here, based on the current political and social climate,
noting that by ‘happy’, I mean fully self-actualised, or even
self-transcendent, in the Maslow sense.
1.
Most countries have
over-flowing prisons, creating untold misery and at enormous, unnecessary expense,
both financial and social.
Self-actualised/transcendent people do not commit crime, including
politically or ideologically motivated crime. They have too much to lose and those
who have achieved self-transcendence know that there is no such thing as a
victimless crime. This in itself guarantees compliance – and empty prisons. This
is also why it is so important to redefine the true meaning of policy
statements such as ‘Every Child Matters’ and ‘No Child Left behind’. It’s
really not just about basic academic skills. Unless we strive towards
self-transcendence for ALL, then we will only perpetuate a world of inequality
and disenfranchisement of the masses. The UK’s Ministry of Justice budget for
this year is around GBP 15 Billion and “£1.3 billion will be invested to reform and
modernise the prison estate to make it even more efficient, safer and focused
on supporting prisoner rehabilitation.” The government is also planning to
build NINE new prisons. Obviously it would be a very long term strategy, but
surely it would be wiser to start investing in schools and an effective
curriculum model that would prevent offending rather than wasting such
obscene resources on prisons and rehabilitation. Self-transecndent people don’t
need rehabilitating and, as GEMS Founder and Chairman Sunny Varkey says,
“Whatever the question, education is the answer.” I believe this is true – but
only if we get it right for every single child.
2.
We are seeing an alarming
rise of ‘alt-right’ and dictatorial political leaders, and movements away from global
citizenship (not to be equated with the economically inequitable ‘globalization’
trend) and a return to pathetic nationalism and misguided tribalism – happy
people do not vote for right wing leaders because this action is inimical to
the very concept of self-transcendence. Leaving Trump aside, we can safely say
that those who voted for Brexit wanted, for a plethora of reasons (some arguably
valid, such as the rampant corruption, arrogance and waste within the EU’s
institutions), to change the status quo. They were not happy – otherwise they
would have voted to remain in what was a 2 choice offer. In effect, the
question was “Would you be better off (happier) in or out of the EU?” Each had his or her own reasons to change the
status quo but, whatever the reason, whatever their concept of happiness, they
must have thought they’d be happier out of Europe. Now they (and everyone else in the UK) are, or
soon will be. Looking inwards, breaking up unions and returning to one’s own
perceived ‘tribe’, can only be a backward evolutionary step. Away from Brexit, we now see The United
Nations becoming increasingly impotent. The five permanent members of The
Security Council, each with the power of veto, do not share the same values,
aspirations or political history and are moving further apart when they need to
be acting together. We should not be surprised at this. These five states were
never true allies with shared values – they hold their position as a result of
the global power dynamic that came out of World War Two. Even looking at that
situation, for the sake of argument, with a British / Western bias, we can say
that Russia was an ally only in that it wasn’t Nazi Germany and China because
it wasn’t Japan. War creates strange bedfellows indeed. Somewhat alarmingly, it was pointed out to me
recently that, should Marine Le Pen win the French election, then the five
member states that effectively decide the future of our world would be led by:
Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Theresa May and Xi Jingping. This
is why global citizenship needs to be a fundamental pillar of the curriculum in
our schools. We can only hope that our children can do better than we have – or
rather educate and empower them to do so.
3.
Linked to no.2, but worth
mentioning as a separate point, is global inequality - the collective cancer
that shames our species. We must surely be teaching our children that we all
have a lifelong duty to actively help narrow and ultimately eliminate the gap
between Norway and the Central African Republic. It simply cannot be right to
focus on individual examination and career success while countless numbers of
children are dying unnecessarily, because of their simple misfortune to have
been born in a country at or near ‘the bottom of the league’. Furthermore, it
is not enough for schools to hold Charity Days, well-being lessons or other ‘add-on’ initiatives in
this area. For lifelong self-transcendence for all, meeting the challenge of
global inequality must be an explicitly stated, core element of the curriculum. It is important to realise that not one of us can be truly self-actualised within Maslow's model, unless we strive for universal equality. This is true simply because the wider the inequality gap, the greater the crime rate and potential for global political upheaval, civil unrest and war. In such conditions, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to feel they have achieved the 'safety' level in Maslow's hierarchy. The further we retreat behind walls, national borders, gated communities, CCTV-controlled estates, etc., to try and guarantee safety, the more difficult it becomes to argue we are self-actualised. There is only one way and that is towards a fair global society. This is not Communism - simply a vision of the world in which every single human being is self-actualised and self-transcendent in their own way. It does not require everyone to enjoy equal wealth, as there are many other indicators of happiness. It does, however, require equality of opportunity in schools and beyond to ensure that every child is able to become all they can be.
A Way Forward
My contention, therefore, is that we need to re-imagine the
structure and focus of the school curriculum with the boldly stated,
overarching aim of empowering all children to achieve lifelong
self-transcendence. Not just to be happy as children so that they ‘learn
better’, but so that they see self-transcendence as the goal and have a
deep understanding of what this means and how it can be achieved. Furthermore,
as positive psychology continues to develop Maslow’s seminal work, I also
suggest that the re-imagined curriculum should, and can, be developed and
delivered using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the framework. Talking about
Maslow is almost a cliché these days, but I do believe his work, combined with
subsequent developments in the field of positive psychology, can provide the
basis of, and even the entire framework for, the curriculum we need to better
our world.
I have started work on this and it is exciting to begin
seeing how the content fits in at each level.
Indeed, one thing I am already noticing is that nothing of value that
currently exists needs to be lost or shoe-horned into the model. Compared to
more revolutionary models such as Marc Prensky’s “The World Needs a New Curriculum,”
it is not likely to be as philosophically challenging to convince schools and
policy-makers to accept a Maslow-based curriculum framework. It is more of a
restructuring and re-focusing exercise than a revolution and, consequently, perhaps
more palatable.
It is not enough to add ‘happiness’ into a traditional
curriculum model. We have a model that explains lifelong happiness in terms of
‘self-transcendence’ and provides the opportunity to empower our children to be
happy and to better their world. It would be remiss of us as educators to
ignore its potential. It seems almost
too simplistic to say that if we are agreed on the purpose of education and
therefore the broad, desired outcomes of a curriculum, and that Maslow appears
to fit this purpose very well, that this model should explicitly form the basis
of the curriculum itself. Why not? This is real world learning for a better
world. If we want our children to be happy and fulfilled and good global
citizens, why wouldn’t we base our school curricula on a model that makes these outcomes explicit?
It is heartening to see that others have already started to
explore this very possibility. Dr. Lori
Desautels
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/addressing-our-needs-maslow-hierarchy-lori-desautels
has suggested some useful practical activities and questions to ask for each
stage of Maslow’s hierarchy, which help to ensure children are meeting their
needs at each level. There is reason to believe this will also help children to
acquire and internalize the skills and mindsets that will serve them well
throughout life. My hope is to build on this, and other on-going work, to
develop such a model to the point where the hierarchy provides the framework
for the whole curriculum, rather than an additional strand.
It will be a complex task, but one that I believe is worth
the time and effort. My hope is to produce a practical curriculum model with
the potential to transform how we organize learning in our schools and meet the
true goal of education – for all children and for a better world.
A world in which we can all live on Happiness Street.
