24 May Interesting article on happiness and education
What is the job of a school? Is it merely to prepare young people for university and work? Or is there a wider purpose? I believe the latter, yet we have seen education in Britain move towards the former.
The content of schools is dictated by government, universities and employers, and none is fully satisfied with the result. School life has become heavily dictated by exams and testing. A broad and liberal education in Britain is being replaced by instruction; open-ended learning is sacrificed before coaching for exams. All schools, including my own, have to march to the drum beat of the examination conductor.
Yet there is a wider vision, in which the purpose of education is to develop all the faculties existing within each child. In these schools, the entire curriculum and extra-curricular life are devoted to identifying, nurturing and developing the eight “intelligences” in every human being – logical, linguistic, sporting, artistic, personal, social, moral and spiritual.
Should schools be teaching maths, science and english…or life skills that will enhance happiness? or would true happiness come from doing both?