What is the purpose of school?

Parents want their kids to be happy and learn a lot, yet schooling tends to narrow the purpose of education to a functional description of developing (probably non-existent) "21st-century skills" or teaching a body of knowledge.

There is another option, teach happiness AND knowledge. If schools were to make wellbeing an explicit goal, two things would have to happen. Firstly we'd have to read the research around good mental health and self-care, including the importance of sleep, mindfulness, healthy living, positive self-talk and the debate around wellbeing and screen-time. Secondly, schools would be forced to read the research linking selfless action and ethical service to improved wellbeing, and put it into action through consistently implemented service-learning projects.

Traditionalists deplore wellbeing as an "end-in-itself", in favor of a purely academic education, arguing that wellbeing is either a consequence of knowledge or the consequence of good exam results; progressives dress wellbeing up as "soft-skills" that prepare kids for success in the workplace.

Schools have lost their spiritual imperative and it needs to be regained it if we are to solve the political impasses, environmental degradation, and eye-watering inequality that threaten our species. The way forward is to give ethical behaviour, compassion, honesty and self-care the same status as academic achievement. Being knowledgeable about the world enables you to be more effective within it, and leads to improved ability to solve complex problems. If it's not accompanied by ethical awareness then the wrong problems will be solved. It's perfectly possible to be both knowledgeable and a malevolent misery-guts. Moulding ethical, happy individuals should be pursued with the same scientific enthusiasm as the transmission of a body of knowledge and skill. 

People criticize the relativism and interpretive schematics of post-modernism, whilst also insisting that no teacher has the right to impose any ethical framework on students.  They might ask, who is a mere teacher to teach the art of living healthily and acting ethically? The answer is similar to the reason why we need to teach knowledge and skill. If we don't teach what we know about wellbeing ,then nobody else will. Postmodernism has failed schools because it places emphasis on the interpretation of knowledge and the empirical world. The consequence of this has been that "enquiry" and the "process" of searching for knowledge has been given the same status as the knowledge itself. Cognitive science has since shown that generic thinking skills almost certainly cannot be developed independently of knowledge. The more we know, the better able we are to think about all human problems. Better then, to specify in detail what it is we want students to know and teach them it.

Postmodernism has also argued that knowledge structures are human constructions, at best vague maps to an unknown reality, better, therefore, to allow students to search their way through life and develop their own interpretations and schemas than teach the map. Combine this attack on knowledge with an education that is permissive, placing emphasis on choice, and you have a recipe for depression. If there is no truth, there is no higher purpose and children will just do what feels good in the moment. The truth becomes something you express not something you find.

This relativist approach to education is promoted by schools who emphasise pedagogy and engagement, with little attention paid to the overarching structure within which children develop. It's isolating and atomizing. This is an educational wasteland. What you learn "doesn't matter", what matters is what you want. Is it any wonder that mental health is poor in our schools? 

There is a clear link between post-truth and post-ethics. As the tide ebbs to a more scientific and empirically based educational philosophy, that reestablishes the important of versing students in the greatest achievements of humanity, is it not also time to rescue ethics from the pernicious failures of relativism and teach the new science of wellbeing? Sometimes people can think that teaching wellbeing is about teaching kids to get more of what they want. Certainly, healthy ambitions and goal-directed behaviours play an important role in what it means to live a contented life. At the same time, however, it's the sacrifice of self for others and compassion that have been shown to increase one's own happiness. In repeated studies, it's been shown that giving a dollar is more satisfying than receiving one. We've come full circle in understanding that by putting others first we are putting ourselves first. This is just one of the principles that would form a new wellbeing curriculum. This is the essence of most spiritual traditions, sacrifice for redemption, the negation of self to attain a higher awareness. Bliss is derived from an ethical framework in all religious traditions. This should be complemented by teaching students how to be accomplished in self-care. 

Compassionate, ethical living leads to wellbeing. The research base around compassion is large and growing, we know more about what makes for a healthy mind than ever before and yet this knowledge is not being systematically taught in schools. Schools have values and rules but these are means to an end, they support good teaching and learning. Happiness and peace should be ends-in-themselves and schools should treat them as seriously as they do the teaching of academic knowledge and skill related to understanding external reality. The NHS recently gave parity of esteem to mental health; the same priority has been given to mental health as to physical health. The issue with this is that the NHS treats illness and mental health but cannot teach wellbeing. Prevention is the role of schools. Health education, PSHE, Citizenship, these are all failed attempts to tackle "the human question". They all focused on ethics as being about duty and responsibility not the means to heightened consciousness and wellbeing. Why can't the science of positive psychology be taught to trainee teachers? Compassion, kindness, strong relationships, truth and mindfulness are the nutritious earth from which strong and healthy minds flourish. 

Progressives are obsessed with "soft skills", communication and creativity whereas traditionalists cannot stop banging on about knowledge. Every study of healthy minds shows that when someone is stressed or anxious then their overall ability to learn, their creativity and their ability to communicate are reduced. Instead of trying to teach kids to be better communicators, teach them how to take care of their state of mind and the "skills" will follow. Don't mistake this for not feeling stressed sometimes. In academic classes, stress can drive you on. Kids don't need less stress, they need an improved attitude towards stress encouraged by consistent, systematic approaches to teaching these strategies. Happier people are more successful, they do better at interviews, they are more charming. There are research-based ways of helping people take care of their own state of mind. This isn't controversial. The problem is that education tries to mix teaching so-called "soft-skills" with the knowledge kids need to be successful and end ups doing neither very well. You could teach kids as many communication strategies as you like; "look people in the eye, express yourself, ask questions" but if they are not mentally healthy then these "skills" won't be transferred or applied. 

The biggest mistake is to do neither the wellbeing part not the teaching part well through some hybrid of both. I think one of the reasons that trads and progs talk past each other is that they are aiming towards different things. The report that came out revealing enquiry and project-based approaches were worse for achievement but better for wellbeing is a good example. Some people celebrated that as a success and some said it was a disaster. Why not drop projects as a means of academic learning and focus on genuinely challenging experience as a means of developing ethics, character and wellbeing? To give an example, an English teacher who says they want to produce life-long learners who can flourish in a range of circumstances might give a long-winded "authentic" research project in order that kids can synthesise and process knowledge and develop their interest and social skills. Often this means working in groups to make a presentation of some kind or another based on kids preferences. When challenged about the validity of this with the powerful argument that knowledge is essential to cognition the answer from teachers is often that, well, if we force kids to learn certain things we are restricting their freedom and reducing their capacity to flourish and so producing "unhappy" kids. This goes back to Emile, by Rosseau, the story in which one child's preferences are indulged and unchallenged in order to develop his true self. People think that by forcing kids to learn certain things they are restricting the freedom to develop the child's own personality. In reality, teaching knowledge in a strict environment is liberating and gives confidence and the ability to solve problems. Knowledge can be truly transformative if it is accompanied by a rebooted and dedicated wellbeing curriculum that runs parallel and teaches the best that has been said and done about wellbeing whilst giving plenty of time for authentic opportunities to experience the discomfort of social service and community work. Wellbeing and sacrifice are tightly intertwined.

Instead of doing projects to develop knowledge let's do projects to develop ethics and wellbeing and leave the academic teaching of a body of knowledge to specialists in this area using what we've learned from the research. When we do knowledge lets do knowledge, when we do wellbeing let's do wellbeing. There can be a twin purpose for schools in which flourishing, happy students are obliged to go out and take care of others, to act out of a spirit of service whilst being taught the best that has been thought and said and deliberately practising it in a classroom. 

The arguments in texts such as the "Coddling of the American Mind" are powerful. We damage kids by failing to allow them to be uncomfortable and develop resilience in the same way that superbugs develop in overly sanitised hospitals. The fear of taking risks leads to anodyne simulations of risk-taking taking that develop neither character nor wellbeing nor knowledge in artificial classroom "experiences". These experiences should be built into education but they cannot happen in the classroom. They need to involve getting out and experiencing talking to old people who are about to die, seeing young people in the hospital and talking to homeless people in the street. this builds awareness. Awareness is the antidote to the myopic navel-gazing of wannabe celebrity teenagers. The arguments for giving choice and voice over what is learnt and how are backwards. Because of too much choice, the kid doesn't get to learn the knowledge that will enable him to engage effectively with the world and the responsibility of choosing or indulging his immature individualism doesn't encourage the kind of self-discipline that any healthy, aware consciousness needs to develop. Rather than being bad for mental health, restrictions and order are preconditions for it. 

Perhaps you are thinking this sounds awfully nice but you don't see how it could happen. It's actually not as difficult as you would think and the great thing about it is that the secrets to a happy and contented mind are almost exactly the same as living an ethical life. Lying is a good example. We all want honest kids and yet we know they lie. We act shocked when they don't immediately admit to something they have done to avoid getting into trouble and yet it is this very shock that encourages them to lie more. The solution is to explain to children why truth and honesty are actually in their best interest in the end. This is the "paradox" of the wellbeing puzzle, one needs to tap into the inherent desire of each individual to be happy in order to convince them of why they should be ethical. If you don't lie, the story should go, it will encourage people to trust you. People will see you as transparent and they will be more likely to tell you things. If you are two-faced people will think you are an asshole. This seems incredibly obvious but how often is our reaction to focus entirely on how the lie made things worse and how awful it was that they lied. The kid learns to keep the lie going once it's begun because lying is so terrible that he'll be doubly punished. This attitude is paradoxical because it incentivises lying more in the future. We should generously forgive truthful kids. Of course, there are subtleties here but overall honesty is good FOR YOU, selflessness is good FOR YOU, love and compassion are good FOR YOU. Getting students into a positive cycle is about vigorously rejecting their lower selves and celebrating their baby-steps towards becoming a more evolved ethical being.

In order to get these types of messages through in a way that children will listen adults need to have credibility. They certainly won't obtain credibility if they are constantly trying to be the child's friend or letting others walk all over them, however, they also won't get credibility purely through the exercise of arbitrary power. Overall consistency and fairness are inherently linked. When kids see that you don't take any rubbish from anyone they will understand it's not that you like or don't like them as individuals it's that you want them to learn and don't like their misbehaviour. Consistency is disinterested and disinterested behaviour on your part is conducive to kids listening to you and taking what you say seriously. The real work of educating ethical and compassionate humans can then take place alongside the body of knowledge we wish them to inhabit. When we come across as petty and small-minded then we can control but we cannot educate.

Alongside honesty is kindness. Schools have kindness as a value, as a poster on the wall, as a speech in an assembly, but how does it seep through and into the mental lives of the children in the school? Are acts of kindness celebrated, published and publicised with the same ferocity as academic results? It is so incredibly obvious that more kindness leads to a happier and healthier school culture that it hardly needs mentioning. It's the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. In his search for a rational basis for morality, Kant stated that one should "never make an exception for oneself", this was his golden rule. If you find yourself saying "well anyone else would have done x unethical thing in my position" then you are convincing yourself to do something you know is wrong. It's the strength to do the right things and stand up to your own lower desires that will lead to future wellbeing. Don't make an exception for yourself, seek the higher goal. Yes, I might lie to save someone's feelings, for example. All that proves is that compassion overrides truth. There is some kind of ordering of moral values but that doesn't in any way suggest that they are relative to different cultures or social groups. 

Finally, healthy exercise and contemplative practices should be an absolute must for everyone. Exercise has been compared to anti-depressants in terms of the power to mitigate low-mood and yet PE is just twice a week and often the kids who are most in need of it can get away with barely breaking a sweat. Mindfulness has an ever-increasing body of knowledge behind it. In my "Knowledge and Happiness" school, exercise would be mandatory every morning for every child and any unhealthy foods would be completely banned. Early running and exercises followed by yoga and meditation. Yes I know it's beginning to sound like a monastery but the difference is it absolutely adheres to no religion, just a generalised sense of valuing humanity and wellbeing as just as important as knowledge and skill. 

The other day I had an interesting conversation with someone who knows a hell of a lot more than me about cognitive load theory regarding what is known as biologically primary knowledge. This knowledge is implicit and encoded within us. We obtain it without paying conscious attention and it is often arrived at intuitively. Biologically primary knowledge consists of premises that underly thought, communication and means to end reasoning. It is contrasted with the semantic structures that we deliberately and consciously build as we acquire symbolically secondary knowledge. Her advice for me? Bring up children with safety and love. Safety and love are essential for our cognitive development, wellbeing is a nutrient driving the flourishing of our cognitive architecture. Why change what schools do? Mental health, solving complex problems, not being taken in by disinformation and misinformation; these are all good reasons for developing the spiritual and ethical elements of humanity as well as the intellectual ones. The time has come to recognise the ethical and spiritual development of all young people as being as important as any other role a school can play.