Can Happiness Be Taught?

What if it were possible to teach our children how to be happy? We already teach them how to read and write, and most modern curricula strive to include instruction in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). All of these subjects are considered fundamental to a good education, as they should be.

But what if at the end of all that learning, our kids fail to thrive? What if they are deeply unhappy? Then what?

I decided to homeschool my children because I felt it was important for them to have ample time to grow emotionally and spiritually as well as academically. Too many hours in a classroom would have precluded the activities we cherished: leisurely afternoons at the beach and peaceful walks through the woods, days of storytelling and hours of introspection, impromptu visits with friends and family. We "wasted" time on slow cooking, travel, conversations that digressed, and Calvin and Hobbes. When there was a conflict, we dropped everything and muddled through a process of reconciliation. Although I wasn't deliberately teaching my kids these "soft skills," which I have since learned are associated with a happier life, I followed my heart and liberally took time away from other subjects to work on improving communication and strengthening friendships.

What I didn't know then was that I was inadvertently helping my kids learn how to be happy. What pains me now is realizing I could have done a better job if I had known this little secret: there are specific skills and practices that have a measurable, positive impact on a person's level of happiness.

For most of my life, I assumed that a person's level of happiness was largely determined by good luck and good genes. If a person wasn't happy as an adult, it was probably due to a combination of neurochemistry and unhappy circumstances.  Turns out I was only partially correct. Nature and nurture establish a baseline, but the choices we make can increase (or decrease) our level of happiness by as much as 20%.

To be clear, I'm not saying researchers have discovered a cure for clinical depression (a condition that afflicts several people in my extended family and circle of friends). What I am saying is that we can learn to consciously act in ways that will increase our "happiness," specifically as the term is defined by positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky:

"Happiness is the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

If we can learn how to be happier, then it follows that we can also teach these skills to our kids. That's the exciting news proclaimed by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.

The Science of Happiness

I'm currently taking an edX course called The Science of Happiness. (I've praised edX, a marvelous nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT in a previous post: "MIT Quality, edX Accessibility." To learn more about edX, go here.) This particular course was created by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and the emphasis is on "positive psychology." So far, I'm finding the course worthwhile and interesting.

In four weeks, we've explored the following major topics, one per week: Happiness (how we define, measure, and actively increase our experience of it); Social Connection (how our affiliations, affections and ability to form attachments impact our level of happiness); Kindness and Compassion (the happiness-altruism loop); and Cooperation and Reconciliation (why cooperation, reconciliation and forgiveness are good for happiness).

A course like this one could easily be all theory and no substance, but it isn't. Every week, there's a new experiment to try, an opportunity to evaluate for ourselves whether there's demonstrable truth in what we're being told. Thus, we are given things to do as well as food for thought.

The course includes asynchronous class discussions, which often illustrate—sometimes unintentionally—what the course is teaching as people freely share their stories of personal challenges and successes. For example, after an exercise in forgiveness, many reported on what worked well for them, what didn't, and why. Some posts were quite moving as people wrote about painful betrayals, regrets, and estrangements from family members. As I read many and responded to a few, I felt a kinship with the other participants. This was in spite of never having met them in person and even though there are perhaps thousands of people enrolled in this MOOC.

And did I mention that the course is free?

I'm not certain whether I will become a happier person now than I was before I took the course, but there's strong evidence (provided by the course) that I might. If I commit to practicing the skills taught in the course, the odds are definitely in my favor. Best of all, I feel empowered to make changes instead of leaving my mood up to chance. That alone makes the course worthwhile.

For More Information

I recommend the Science of Happiness course to anyone who has the time for it (at least six hours per week for nine weeks). If you don't have the time for the course, you can still find many of the videos and readings on the Greater Good Science Center website. In addition, the primary texts for the course are as follows:

1. Born to Be Good by Dacher Keltner 




2. The Compassionate Instinct, an anthology of readings co-edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith


3. The How of Happiness by Sonya Lyubomirsky