The good life, and how to find it
I think a lot about flourishing, especially in the context of school communities. "Flourishing" has become a bit of a buzz word in schools over the past decade or so, largely because of the increasing popularity of Positive Education (the “bringing together [of] the science of Positive Psychology with best-practice teaching to encourage and support schools and individuals within their communities to flourish”[1]).
"It's about time", I say. According to Ozolins[2], Western societies abandoned their broad and general approach to education in favour of a utilitarian approach driven by economic rationalism in the 1980s, especially under the policies of President Reagan in the USA and Prime Minister Thatcher in the UK. Students began to be seen as “human capital”, and education as having “an economic production function”. Ozolins spoke out strongly against this move, “Human beings are not reducible to the function they perform in the workplace … Reducing the aims of education to training and skilling individuals to perform needed functions in the workforce is simplistic and ignores the complexity of human needs and aspiration”. I think most contemporary educators would agree that these reductionist aims for education, as an extreme manifestation of the Industrial Age (and now, the Age of Technology), do a great disservice to the young people in our care.
A classical education, from the time of the ancient Greeks, took a much more holistic view of the human person (although, admittedly, this education was limited almost entirely to the sons of the privileged classes). The original Greek pedagogues, and the early Christian teachers who followed them, provided moral guidance by means of a holistic education which addressed the intellectual, physical, moral and emotional development of the young people in their care, resulting in the formation of character through training in the virtues[3].
JKA Smith (2016) stated that “To be human is to be on a quest” or to have a teleological nature, and he went on to describe telos as a vision of “the good life” or an understanding of what it means to “flourish”[4]. These ideas (and language) are borrowed from Aristotle, who considered the telos of human beings as living a virtuous life in accordance with reason, and who used the word eudaimonia to describe a flourishing life.
Ultimately, holistic education is a response to the idea that human beings have a spiritual dimension which “gives meaning and purpose to their identity and place in life and how they are to live their lives”[5]. Secondary schools have a particular responsibility to assist students in their search for purpose and meaning, as adolescence is the stage of life when this search usually commences, as part of the larger task of identity formation. According to Damon, et al., “Purpose is a stable and generalised intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self”[6].
As I said, I think a lot about flourishing and what it means to live a good life. The ongoing tragedies in Gaza and Ukraine, especially when viewed in light of actions and words coming out of the White House, should give all of us who enjoy relative peace and prosperity a reason for serious contemplation.
Perhaps the most important words ever spoken about flourishing came from Jesus, as recorded in John 10:10 – “I have come in order that you might have life - life in all its fullness.” (Holy Bible, GNT, 1992). There is a peculiarly Christian understanding of flourishing which involves not just development but transformation of the human person. The Church of England Education Office in the U.K. put it this way – “Following Christ … is being a particular type of person, one who is shaped by Jesus’ teaching; someone whose life is an embodied anticipation of the Kingdom yet to come”.
[1] Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O'Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education.?International Journal of Wellbeing,?3(2).
[2] Ozolins, J. (2015). Reclaiming paedeia in an age of crises: Education and the necessity of wisdom. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(9), 870-882.
[3] Arthur, J. (2021). A Christian education in the virtues: Character formation and human flourishing.
[4] Smith, J. K. A. (2016). You are what you love: The spiritual power of habit.
[5] Webster, R. S. (2013). Healing the physical/spiritual divide through a holistic and hermeneutic approach to education. International Journal of Children's Spirituality, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 62-73?
[6] Damon, W., Menon, J. and Cotton Bronk. K (2003). The Development of Purpose During Adolescence. Applied developmental science, Vol. 7 Issue 3, pp. 119-128
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