Why I'm teaching Happiness ? from my mentor

I believe that our education in schools is fundamentally ill-balanced. Of course exams matter greatly - they are the passport to an individual's higher education and career. A school which fails to let every child achieve the best grades of which he or her are capable is failing to do its job properly. But education is far more than this, which is why league tables, and the reverence in which they are treated, is so wrong. They say nothing about the quality of the teaching (or the intake), about the wider life of the school, or whether it is turning out resentful and ill-balanced young adults, or whether it is helping to produce young men and women who are happy and who know themselves and what they want to do in life.

As a teacher, I have seen far too many tortured and unhappy pupils who have achieved four or five A grades at A-level. If they can achieve these grades while leading balanced lives, taking part in a wide variety of activities which will develop different facets of their character, and if they blossom as human beings, then all is well and good. But as any teacher will know, this isn't always the case with high achievers. Neither is it with high achievers in life. These driven people see their lives flash by in fast living and fast cars, and most fail to realise they are missing the point of life. Is it more important to be highly successful, or to be a respected colleague and a valued friend, and a loving parent whose children grow up in a secure environment in which they know they are valued and treasured? I have had to learn the hard way, the answers are obvious.

Hence the need to teach happiness while at school, while individuals are still having their characters and habits formed. It is much harder to acquire good habits later in life.

So in what will the lessons consist? These will not be lessons like history or physics, where it is primarily the intellect involved, and where the acquisition of knowledge is all important. This is about emotional learning and emotional intelligence, and is a far more reflective activity then traditional classes. Pupils will learn about how to form healthy and sustaining relationships. They will gain understanding about the goals they should want to set in life, which should be realistic and appropriate for their own talents and interests. The negative emotions which are an inevitable part of life will be explored: pupils will be able to learn more about what it is that causes them pain and unhappiness, how they might be able to avoid or minimise these emotions and how to deal with them when they do occur. So the essence is that pupils learn more about themselves, which will be information which they will be able to use for the rest of their lives.

Some individuals are born with sunnier dispositions than others. These lessons will be able to help children regardless of their genes. The childhood experience of some is very happy and secure while for others it is fraught and unstable. Again, these classes should be able to help children with both kinds of experience, not the least by learning from each other.

Good relationships, which lie at the heart of anyone's happy life, are based on a strong moral code of caring for the other and being loyal. Abusing others, either with words, physically or by inappropriate sexual relations, does not produce happiness but rather the opposite.

The pursuit of true happiness is also a deeply spiritual quest: the heart of spirituality is about the transcendence of one's own self and the forming of deeply loving and compassionate relationships with others. Neither do I see these lessons as selfish. Ask any parent. Would they sooner see their children happy and fulfilled, even at the cost of achieving slightly less, or stressed out and vexed in the pursuit of ever-higher goals which always seem to be beyond their reach? Happiness I believe lies in knowing one's own limitations, accepting oneself for what one is, and being proud of what one achieves, at whatever level that might be.

What is the purpose of schooling if not to prepare its young for higher education and beyond? It is not only at university that personal difficulties arise. Most of us have had to cope in our lives with professional rejections, breakdowns of relationships, bereavements and periods of depression. These are all part of life. I personally wish that I had received a better grounding at school, not only in what kind of career I might have followed to make me feel fulfilled, but how also to cope better with the difficulties that life throws at one.

Studies as diverse as those from the Cabinet Office, the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and Harvard University point to similar conclusions, that money, fame and worldly success do not necessarily lead to happy and fulfilled lives.

I would like to see all schools within five years begin to teach positive psychology and happiness. The Well-being Institute is becoming involved with advising the health service and businesses about the subject. Valuable though this will be, I believe it is almost too late to teach, and it is much better to put the whole subject over to individuals when they are still at school. Governments will not be able to boast of quantifiable improvements, and schools won't be able to show off any tangible benefits for league tables (although I would say that happy children are more likely to do their best in exams).

But I do believe that by taking the subject seriously, schools will not only be doing a much better job morally for their pupils, but they will also help produce young men and women who will help to build a far better society than their parents did. This is a real challenge and it is one to which I believe all schools should rise.

Anthony Seldon is the Master of Wellington College and is John Major and Tony Blair's biographer