Happiness and Education

Art brings me great happiness.
I place a high value on this. I try to share that notion as rather crucial.
When I teach art I notice happiness and I've been noticing it for 35 years in working with children in poverty-sometimes children in such poverty they did not name their creating "art".
Since I value  the state of being happy even higher than the production of the art- I also noticed that  engaged in art, students derived happiness from the work of others.That they had a transfer of positive affect. Over a deep transfer of negative emotional states.  Projects that were creatively connected to something they were learning-with art components, changed the way the work was "recalled" or felt.
Engaged in problem solving within meaningful art projects they were open to the ideas and solutions of others. I, myself, call this a "zone of well being." And I think it is critical. Clearly others do as well.

I notice that many others are researching and talking about this as well, and my practical observation and work has deep roots in terms like "brain training.". People that make suggestions about keeping gratitude lists, writing affirmations to others, exercise, might well add to the lists-make art. It's one of the most powerful ways to happiness through mind training. I know meditation leads to this state and, in fact is so similar that I argue it is a sister to art in making mind change. Buckminster Fuller talked so much about "the artifact"-I understand that.As children are inventing within art-they are doing something important. One person here says this is is existence temporarily suspended. . But just the same as we think about training mind habits in children- art offers us a way.
Listen to this TED talk. It will engage you in talking about well-being and happiness.



I'm really glad i took the time to listen to this talk.
Of course years ago I started to believe that if we were going to talk about education we should talk about happiness.
Then I read widely, ultimately finding Nel Noddings. Her book Happiness And Education grounded me in what we are here to do in this work.
It provided me with a frame.

If you have not read her, take the time.

Especially if you educate children.

I like that happiness makes us more productive.
I like this speaker as well.



His talking about happiness in terms of the averages, about pathologuy models, about looking at school and work as "fixing" others-it's terrific. It's the basis of the school system all too often. Here is the standard-let's chart your "issues" or the medical model.
Art taught me something else.
It taught me there are a lot of answers to this visual problem. It changed the lens from which I viewed the world.

When we ask people to be in our schools- are they two weeks later focused on their inadequacy, the competition, their scores, on the external world?
Are we focused on the way the brain processes our happiness?

I wrote a set of Standards. I got a good bit of notice for doing that. One of the people I work with asked me for a copy-which was so affirming. Later she shared that she felt that had helped her to better understand why she went into the work.

His talk, while fast , is definitely important.
I would add to his list of things to do, journaling, gratitude list, random acts of kindness things like I did here. Make art, teach with art, place the lessons and the results into discussion. Elevate this to thinking work.


Happiness , my husband tells me, has always been why he wanted to be in my company. I thought about that. I realized it was a statement on my pursuit of it through seeking to find his talents, others talents and affirm them. To be grateful for that opportunity. To enjoy them.
I learned this in several ways-early exposure to art and making and people involved in creative process. Through seeing the opposite. Through suffering. And in finding myself affirmed when I created.

I remember reading and listening to Nelson Mandela -what struck me was he carried no hate.
Whenever I saw him my feeling of well-being increased.
When I am around a group of people that have long term nurtured their anger, their unhappiness I feel that also. It affects my living. Teachers definitely need to understand burn out and ego, and something like this. If the work being done is embroiled in unhappiness, competition, rules, pathology, testing, and endless feelings of failure....what will be the result in the growth and development of the brain.

This TED talk made me think.
Because I've experienced "flow" in art.
And happiness there.
Especially in the work with children. I was listening to this talk and realized that if over the twelve years we trained and worked on student creativity, the ten years he sees as necessary for "flow" will be in play. Music, art, creativity are core to the work of the teacher. To think of them as getting in the way of a standard, or something to be eliminated because of a lack of time-is to damage a student's growth.



And  you have to love this.



And surely of all I listened to today-this was brilliant.
And is my answer to WHY THE ARTS.