Cleaning up the Mess and Messing up the Clean: a response to ‘Happiness Lessons in Schools'

Abstract

First paragraph: The fact that certain educators and psychologists (assuming that there is any difference between the two ) believe that happiness lessons are a good idea is simultaneously bizarre whilst being utterly in keeping with current orthodoxies. I make this claim, because during my experience as an English teacher, we were pretty much told that every lesson ought to be a happiness lesson. By this, I mean that every lesson ought to be fast paced (preventing boredom), that it should accommodate different kinds of learner kinaesthetic, auditory and visual (those students with ants in their pants will get to shake off those ants). All areas being taught should be scaffolded so that students would feel comfortable with what they were learning in order that emotional scarring would not result from their confusion and they could learn more effectively. If possible learning should be like a game, in fact turning certain areas into games is widely held to be good practice-it is important that learning should never be a slow, difficult or onerous activity. Students should also be rewarded whenever possible (in the case of disaffected students you might reward them for not doing certain things-swearing, beating each other up etc.). Ultimately if an inspector came to watch your lesson she would hope to see most if not all of these things. Indeed, not only would the inspector not want to see mayhem within the classroom, rows of quiet attentive children would be almost as unacceptable-the students should be champing at the bit paralytic with excitement at the thought of being able to learn kinaesthetically or answer questions in brief speedy question and answer sessions.