Happiness Lessons in Schools

TL;DR: However, as I shall argue, the presuppositions of the discourse in which many of these proposals are framed, and their orientation towards particular strands of positive psychology, involve ideas about human life that are, in an important sense, anti-educational.

Abstract: Recent media reports about new programmes for “happiness lessons” in schools signal a welcome concern with children’s well-being. However, as I shall argue, the presuppositions of the discourse in which many of these proposals are framed, and their orientation towards particular strands of positive psychology, involve ideas about human life that are, in an important sense, anti-educational. “The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems which trouble us...” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations) The idea of teaching happiness has received considerable attention recently in Britain. Press reports draw attention to several reportedly successful attempts to introduce “happiness lessons” in schools, such as those at Wellington College or South Tyneside (see for example The Guardian, 2007; The Times 2008). Reference is often made, in the context of these pieces, to Richard Layard’s influential report to the government in 2002 where, pointing out that the Government spent more money on incapacity benefits for the mentally ill than it did on unemployment benefits, and declaring mental illness to be “the major social problem facing our country today”, he speaks enthusiastically about the new “science of happiness” that ostensibly holds the secrets to solving these problems. The term “the science of happiness” is often used interchangeably with “positive psychology” as an umbrella term to refer to the techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), measurements of well-being, and research in social-science and economics based on such measurements. Those involved in the movement to teach happiness in education are quite explicit about the fact that their intellectual roots lie in this approach. Prominent members of the positive psychology movement, for example Nick Baylis, are behind programmes such as the one adopted by Wellington College. Britain’s leading institute for positive psychology, the University of Cambridge Well-Being Institute, has initiated and collaborated with several educational programmes, and make prominent mention of education and children on its website, http://www.cambridgewellbeing.org/action_children.html Martin Seligman, generally regarded as the founding father of positive psychology, remarked in a recent interview in The Times that “nowhere else in the world have [my] ideas been so