Shouldn't happiness be on the curriculum?

What if we were taught to be happy?

I've never in my life had a lesson on being happy, at least, not in a traditional school setting. It just wasn't on the menu. So I've had to figure out a lot on my own, without any help from the schoolsystem. Instead they did everything in their power to educate me out of my own happiness. Instead of reckognizing my body as a mobile learning unit they taught me to sit still, sit up straight with my arms folded.

Instead of allowing me to call out answers, solutions and idea's out loud whenever a topic was discussed in class they taught me to raise my hand before I could speak. Raise my hand and wait till I got a turn to be heard.

Instead of allowing me to discover a myriad of different answers to questions they taught me that there was only one right answer and it was right there in the back of the book and shut up about other possibilities and modes of thinking...

It wasn't untill I was way into adulthood that I found out that the answers in the back of the book were really our best guesses about what was going on in reality and for most topics they were not only our best guesses, by the time I finished school these answers were no longer valid as new insights had been gained. Science isn't what it used to be when I was in school. Nor is history if it comes to that.

Classes in happiness could definately have improved my education and I'm glad to see that the tides are changing. We now offer our preschoolers a more rounded package in the curriculum. With one shining example of how it could be: The Rockwell International School: preschool in Hyderabad

Preparing for an unknown future

When our generation was in school, we were prepared for what everyone assumed to be a predictable future. We'd receive an education, become good at our chosen field and we'd make a career out of that and become wealthy. Becoming wealthy was what it was all about, instead of becoming happy. If you wanted with all your heart to become a busdriver but you were a good learner you were stimulated to become a doctor or lawyer instead in such a way that busdriving would be considered a hobby, an anomaly. I know someone who went through lawschool and upon passing his bar-exam told his parents that up untill that point he'd been doing what they wanted him to do. Now he took control of his own life and became a busdriver like he always wanted. The point is: He is happy now.

Another lawyer I know really wants to be a self sustaining farmer type, where he grows his own food, generates his own electricity and takes care of his own water supply, all in a sustainable manner. He's only happy when he's out in his garden doing stuff. The sad bit is that he's in a law office 32 hours a week doing what he is good at but what is not his hearts desire by a long shot.

Kids in school today prepare for an unknown future. We don't know what the jobs of the future are going to be. We are noticing the crumbling of traditional ways of making money all around us. In holland about 20 percent of the working class doesn't have a job, not because they're unemployed but because they are selfemployed, often in ways that they made up themselves. There's a shift in the making that we don't know the half of yet and yet we are educating our young ones as though they will end up in a grey office spending their life being miserable in the 'intensive peoplefarming' being managed right out of their joy in life.

So much for educating our young ones to be happy. A nice refreshing look at education is what is happening at Rockwell international School. A healthy departure from traditional systems.