Resolution – Happiness in the New Year

My grandmother was a woman full of homespun wisdom.  One of the things that she said when things didn’t go according to hopes or plans was, “You can get used to anything but hangin’.”

In the past 9 months, very little has gone according to plan!  We have “gotten used to” many things that were not part of the plan: social distancing, mask-wearing, variable availability of goods and services, and many other choice-limiting aspects of everyday life.  As educators, we have “gotten used to” pivoting from in-person learning to online learning and back on a moment’s notice. 

We have gotten used to these circumstances and conditions, but have we found a way to be happy within them?

Measuring Happiness (The Back-Story)

This week, I read an executive summary of research concerning instruments for measuring happiness.  The study was by researchers for researchers, trying to determine what test of happiness would be most effective world-wide.  Researchers compared two tests, one developed in the US and one in Japan. 

The US-based test focused on the Western idea of happiness, founded in Western ideals that “emphasize personal worthiness and hard work to obtain positive outcomes”.  The Japanese test relates more closely to the “East Asian world view… in which the self is more entwined with others.”

Researchers found that the instrument developed in the US was most accurate in countries with higher levels of development, slower population growth, and (curiously) in colder climates.   The Japanese instrument more accurately assessed happiness in Asian countries (China, Vietnam, South Korea) and African countries.  Intriguingly, both instruments were “highly reliable” in the US and Japan – two countries that are often used to highlight cross-cultural differences.  (To read the executive summary, see https://neurosciencenews.com/how-you-measure-happiness-depends-on-where-you-live/ )

Cultures of Happiness

While findings about the reliability of the two instruments are of great significance to cultural psychologists, this study pointed me in a different direction.  It made me think about how often we talk about Montessori as being “counter-cultural”. There are many aspects to our practice that support that claim, among them:

• Our Cosmic Curriculum emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things.
• We value collaboration over competition.
• We discourage children and parents from comparing children to each other, preferring to compare the development and achievements of the today-child to the last-month child and the last-year child.
• We promote peer-to-peer teaching, encouraging students to invest in the success of others.
• We solve problems collaboratively based on what is good for the community.

These philosophical values reflect ideals commonly associated with Eastern cultures.  So perhaps a more accurate claim would be that the Montessori culture has much in common with Eastern cultures.

Connecting the Dots: Happiness and Culture

In 2020 (thankfully, now nearly in the rear-view mirror), many have struggled to find happiness.  Of course, some have experienced a catastrophic loss of family, friends, health, home, or financial security.  These losses have been devastating.  But even among those for whom the succession of calamities of 2020 have been less shattering, happiness has been elusive. 

To be sure, 2020 was no mere minor adjustment for anyone.  But what if our difficulty in experiencing happiness stems in some significant part from our Western culture, that, “sees happiness as a personal achievement”, arising from our “self-centered world view that emphasizes personal worthiness and hard work to obtain positive outcomes.”  What if we could increase our happiness through the same cultural shift that we Montessorians cultivate within our classrooms? 

Along those same lines, to what degree does our longing for a return to “normal” prevent us from finding happiness?  The media routinely classifies our circumstances as “unprecedented”, even though history proves otherwise.  The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and the Black Death (the Plague) of the mid-1300s are probably most similar. But we don’t have to look hard to find other examples where people faced high mortality rates caused by things beyond their control, including the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, various episodes of famine around the globe, and every war on every scale. 

What if we could stop thinking of COVID as being an unprecedented event to be survived and start thinking of it as a cultural tipping point? As we finish out 2020, it strikes me that this time is ripe for personal transformation. 

More Questions than Answers

Personal transformation is easier said than done, right?  Paradigm shifts are never instantaneous. They rarely are accomplished without doing the work to identify beliefs and practices that are discordant with our ideal.  For me, it all comes back to a few fundamental questions that challenge the culture in which I was raised.  

• To what degree do I believe that I am inexorably intertwined with others everywhere – not just my selected people?   
• What differences will come from acting from a belief in abundance – that one person’s success doesn’t limit another’s, but actually enables it?
• How can I come to more intimately understand my own identity and culture and build windows into the lives and cultures of those that are different from my own?  How can I do this, not voyeuristically, but with the express purpose to better serve our interconnectedness?
• What changes in my words, attitudes, and actions will this knowledge precipitate?  How will I better support, acknowledge, and celebrate the happiness and success of others?

I will confess that I have very few answers to these questions at present.  I expect to be pursuing answers to these questions throughout 2021 and probably for years to come.

Resolutions for Happiness

The idea of personal happiness as being tightly linked to our interconnectedness is not a new one, even in the Western world.  Countless studies have linked altruism with happiness at a level at least comparable to personal achievement.  In a recent article on happiness, researchers from the University of Rochester identified 3 basic happiness-needs: autonomy (choosing activities with personal value), competence (feeling effective), and relatedness (interconnectedness).  Tapping into this, psychologist Richard Ryan advocates choosing goals that will authentically connect us.  “What proves most satisfying, and may also be what’s most needed as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, are goals that involve giving to others…Think of how you can help.  There’s a lot of distress out there: If we can set goals that aim to help others, those kinds of goals will, in turn, also add to our own well-being.”  (To read the full article, see https://neurosciencenews.com/2021-happiness-psychology-17476/ )

I am sure that everyone’s hope for 2021 is a year filled with greater health and happiness, and for the ability to be able to choose to be with one another whenever the occasion merits it. In addition, I wish all of us greater authentic interconnectedness, fewer occasions to judge or be judged, and more occasions to help others succeed, bringing us peace, joy, and a rejuvenated spirit.

Reflection for adults:

Various personal reflections may be calling to you at this time, just as they are to me.  Here are a few reflections about classroom culture that may also be helpful:

• How can I help children begin the year with goals that will promote not just their personal growth and accomplishment but also their well-being and happiness through interdependence and more proactive awareness of the needs of others? 
• How can I build more authentic interconnectedness within my classroom, especially during times when we are not physically together? 
• Are there children in the class who might feel that their culture is underrepresented in my classroom?  If so, how can I invite that culture into my materials, practices, and words?
• What can I do to connect my children to people whose cultures are different from the predominant culture of our school?
• What service/activities/traditions might we start that work towards alleviating the distress of others?

_{Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay} 

“In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

–Mother Teresa of Calcutta