This is the scene of the opening day in The Question of Happiness, a seven-day symposium intersession course at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York, a long-established pre-K-12 college preparatory school. Among the themes students selected were family, friendship and relationships, nature, lightheartedness, and fun. In the course of their discussions, students brought to the surface some of the big questions that people across the ages have asked: “What constitutes true happiness?” “Where and how do we find it?” “Is happiness a sustainable state?”
The Question of Happiness course is part of the symposium program at Packer, a relatively new addition to the curriculum, which has recently completed its fourth year. Its purpose is to provide authentic learning experiences for students that may complement but typically fall outside the stated academic curriculum. The Question of Happiness is one of more than a dozen of the program’s options, which range from Outdoor Education to Queer in the Media to The History of Hip-Hop. The program also offers teachers an opportunity to create courses that are of particular interest but not necessarily within one’s teaching discipline. As a studio art teacher at Packer, I have always been interested in addressing the inner lives of students. The Question of Happiness course, which I have taught now for three years with a co-teacher, is another pathway to that end.
A Break From Stress
The Question of Happiness has been a favorite among students because the course provides a chance for them to step back from the intense academic pressures of a college preparatory education and to reflect directly on a matter of immense personal importance, their own sense of well-being. In addition to its being intrinsically interesting, the course was created as a direct response to the intensity of school life and the stressors of a rigorous academic program.The stress of an independent school education has long been a much-discussed topic among our faculty. Each 10-year self-study report for the last 30 years has highlighted student stress at school as a persistent problem that negatively affects students’ emotional health. Only a handful of high school students might admit to not being stressed out by the pressures to do well and the driving need to get into a “good” college. Stress is embedded within the school culture. It remains a fact of life, a stubborn reality to which we have mostly resigned ourselves.
The question — what to do about stress? — keeps resurfacing in our school. In recent years we have taken some small steps to address the issue. Wellness education has become a central part of health courses at the school. A fledgling mindfulness program was initiated recently in some of the lower grades. The Question of Happiness course is another step. Literature and science exploring the nature of happiness1 has been flourishing, especially in the last decade, and has provided a credible foundation and ample rationale for offering a course on this subject to high school students. The students have responded each year with enthusiastic feedback about the course and how it has helped them.
One student wrote:
It was being able to think about the concept of happiness and only happiness, for a sustained period of time that paved the way for a lasting impact. I would have gladly welcomed another two weeks and I would encourage everyone to give the happiness symposium a chance.
The objective of the course is to provide an easeful, spacious, and richly textured experience that supports students’ sense of well-being as they explore the subject of happiness, both intellectually and experientially. Through a combination of readings, discussion, and activities, students emerge from the seven days with a deeper understanding of their own happiness and how to cope with the stressors and challenges at school and in life. The goal of addressing both the mental and emotional lives of the students requires a balancing of the intellectual content with experiential components of the course. The week is structured to provide a varied and engaging sequence of activities across the seven days and within any given day.
Themes of the Course
The content of the course this year centered on themes, some of which were threaded throughout the week and others specific to one day. Some central themes this year included the philosophy of happiness through the ages, the psychology and developing science of happiness, compassion and gratitude, the changing understanding of happiness over the life cycle, and ways to overcome challenges to happiness.For the first two years of the course, we provided a wide range of readings from Aristotle to Buddhist teachings, interspersed with current articles from psychologists, journalists, authors, and poets. The literature on happiness is vast and deep. After all, the question is an age-old one. As teachers, we were thrilled at the opportunity to dive into the wealth of resources and to discover more and more treasures along the way.
The volume of readings, though, tended to fragment the experience for the students who expressly stated that they wanted more experiential learning and less “school as school.” This year, in an effort to provide more focus throughout the week, we used a single text, the recently published The Book of Joy,2 an account of dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In their encounters, these two deeply thoughtful and extraordinarily happy individuals addressed all of the topics we wanted to cover and more. The spiritual nature of the two men, a fact that might have been an obstacle to some in a distinctively secular school setting, proved otherwise as the universal wisdom of their words was directly accessible to the students.
Experiential learning, the other hugely important component of the course, composed a significant part of each day. Activities included interviews with different age groups, field trips, guest speakers and panels, experiences in the creative arts, and the creation of a communal meal. Space and time were also allotted each day for laughter and play and for the pleasures of the senses, specifically the pleasure of taste. Each afternoon something delicious was served but with the instruction to slow down and savor the taste with a mindful attitude. Students also engaged in quiet journaling sessions and other mindfulness practices each day.
Highlights of the Course: Day by Day
To give a better picture of how the course unfolded, here are some highlights from each day:Day One introduced some of the main themes. In exploring happiness as it is understood and experienced at different stages of life, we began by “interviewing” the three-year-olds and kindergartners at Packer. Students also spoke with fourth graders and conducted individual interviews with an array of adults who serve in different capacities at the school, including teachers and maintenance and kitchen staff. Themes around the importance of family and friends emerged from the younger students, while the adults often spoke of learning to be happy with what you have.
Day Two focused on the topic of gratitude. After watching TED talks and reading about the researched benefits of gratitude, students were each given a pad of sticky notes and the instructions to roam through the school delivering notes of gratitude to teachers, staff, friends, and even to their favorite corners and niches of the building. Over the three years of the course, this has been one of the favorite days from the perspective of both the students and the recipients of the notes. In some cases, these heartfelt messages have remained in place for several years, plastered on office doors and above desks. Students on occasion express such gratitude to teachers and friends, but rarely are they given blanket permission to let their feelings of thanks flow in an uninterrupted way. On Day Two, the general feeling of buoyant goodwill in the school was palpable. One teacher remarked that she could practically feel the building lift off its foundations. This one practice alone, easily replicated, offered students a tangible way to support their own experience of happiness.
One student wrote:
The happiness symposium really showed me the value in noticing the little things around me that greatly contribute to my sense of peace and belonging…. Seeing how much I was grateful for threw all of my problems into perspective and helped me develop a way to feel good even when something negative was happening in my life.
Day Three took the students on a field trip to a nearby senior citizens center where they interviewed elders on the subject of happiness. Many of the elders were delighted with the attention from young people and shared their life stories generously. “Leaving so soon?” one woman in her 80s asked as the group began to head out for the second leg of the outing, a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Here they would reflect on the effects of the outer environment on one’s sense of well-being, in this case being surrounded by nature. Even though it was mid-January, the conservatory greenhouses were open and offered three distinctly different climate zones to explore: tropical, desert, and temperate. Students gravitated toward the one that felt most like “home” and sat there among the plants to journal. This experience was juxtaposed later in the week with immersion into very different environments.
Day Four focused on experiences in the creative arts. A gifted music teacher led the students in creating spontaneous improvisational compositions. In the afternoon, a dynamic theater teacher led the group in a series of theater games and exercises. The teacher established a safe setting that allowed many of the students to take chances at being foolish; this offered another lesson about the value of letting go and experiencing the sense of fulfillment that follows. Laughter was the subtheme for the day and was abundantly present.
Day Five focused on the value of community and how forging a bond with those in our midst could support our own well-being. The medium for this “lesson” was the creation of a communal meal. The class made a trip to the grocery store to buy ingredients for “Happiness Soup” and returned to chop and dice the vegetables, which were deposited into a slow cooker for the remainder of the day. The soup served as a metaphor for the coming together of a community. Just as the distinct flavors of each vegetable blended together in the common pot, the students over the course of the week let down their guards and offered more and more of themselves to form a cohesive and spirited community.
For the meal itself, students brought in dishes that were typically part of their family traditions, such as empanadas, blintzes, Jamaican fish and rice, guacamole, and a luscious frozen key lime pie. The class turned the classroom into a banquet hall with flowers and decorations, and they also prepared stories and experiences to share during the meal. Because all had prepared thoughtfully for the conversation, everyone had a voice at the table. The feeling of being included and being an integral part of the community was another key to supporting one’s sense of well-being. With much laughter, the pleasure of wonderful food, and shared stories, the metaphor of the soup was made manifest.
Day Six included a second field trip, this time to Manhattan where students continued to explore how the outer environment affected one’s inner state. The environment in this case was a busy commercial district, far afield from the peaceful ambience of the botanic garden. The focus question was, “What material things support your personal sense of well-being?” While the course was mainly focused on recognizing inner qualities that supported happiness, the material world is very much a part of most adolescents’ lives. As students wandered through the area noting and photographing the stores and restaurants that drew their attention, each of them created a unique profile of their preferences in the material world.
As a counterbalance to the street experience, we next visited the Rubin Museum of Art. This museum of Asian art provided a serene environment conducive to contemplation. The differences were dramatic and provided the foundation for an engaging conversation about the effects of environment on our inner state of being.
On Day Seven, the last day, a very different tone was set as we were honored to have as a guest a man in his 90s, a former Packer parent, who had survived imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. His stories and particularly his spirit for life, which he had managed to sustain despite his horrific experiences, struck a particularly profound note with the students. They unanimously acknowledged this session to be one of the most useful and compelling parts of the week. To be in the company of a man who exhibited such an extraordinary degree of resilience and an ability to reclaim his sense of well-being through the benefits of his family, community, and work as an artist was uniquely inspiring. Afterward, students reflected on how the difficulties in life could help shape one’s experience of happiness by learning how to face them and by finding ways to accept them.
The mix of experiences over the course of the week, ranging from the uplifting expressions of gratitude to sessions of laughter and play to the ways of coping with the gravity of life, provided students with memorable experiences and much to think about.
One student wrote in his reflections about the course:
The happiness course was truly a life changing experience for me because I was able to apply the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama to my own life. One lesson I really took away from The Book of Joy was that we experience happiness most when we express gratitude for the people, places, and things that sometimes we can take for granted. Since the course, I have made a conscious effort to express appreciation for the people that make my life so wonderful and in return, I have found a newfound confidence within myself to form deeper and more impactful relationships with my peers. The Book of Joy had such a positive impact on me that I gave it to my Grandma as a gift for her 94th birthday.
A Final Project Summed It Up
As a final concluding project, each member of the group created a personal contribution to a collaborative mandala-like image including words and images that had stayed with them from the week.This course was not school as usual but definitely a form of education that has its place in school and in the emerging lives of students. At least for the seven days, the levels of stress were remarkably reduced. The question remains how to allow and to integrate this kind of learning and these sorts of experiences into the larger flow of the school year.
Notes
1. Included among the many books about happiness published in recent years are Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin Seligman; and Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar. For an extensive and varied listing of books about happiness, see Maria Popova’s literary newsletter Brain Pickings and her archive on “happiness” at https://www.brainpickings.org/tag/happiness/.
2.The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (New York: Avery, 2016).