This is definitely the best book I have read on Education in the last decade. And it’s not an education book per se: ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’.
Jonathan Haidt introduces his readers to the world of positive psychology and it is this body of ideas that we should be using to help us design the schools of the future. This is truly cutting edge scholarship. It is hard to imagine a school adopting a ‘wellbeing’ agenda without referring to it.
Here are just three thoughts for schools, that the book stimulates:
1. How do we asssess students’ strengths and use those strengths to help them prosper?
2. How can we better use the findings from positive psychology to engender happiness in our schols and in our children?
3. Is there a place for teaching meditation in school, as one means of equipping students for their adult lives?
Several chapters are available in full online. For example:
www.happinesshypothesis.com/happiness-hypothesis-ch1.pdf
And the book is there on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Ancient-ebook/dp/B003E749TE
