ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Curtis Kelly

Peter Viney

Chris Hunt

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Marc | Curtis | Peter | Chris | Chuck
Date: June 2005

Topic: "Can we teach our students to be happy? "

Now is the best time to be…

Chris Hunt

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Which are more fleeting, the tears of happiness or the tears of sorrow?

Happiness is…over-rated. The problem with happiness is that what goes up invariably crashes down. This can be fine if one enjoys rollercoasters. Some people enjoy the taste of their heart in their mouth. As for myself, I too often have a fear of heights, though staring out of an aeroplane window can be gently soporific. Clouds are white, and into each life a little rain must fall unless one is above them.

“The life, the learning is integral to the learner, springs from within the learner, is the learner.”

When Marc first brought up this topic I decided I would write about contentment. I realised I would mention Krishnamurti, who in his books, I thought, suggested that contentment is a more satisfactory state of affairs than happiness. To be content is to be beyond both happiness and unhappiness. Happiness screams, contentment nods sagely, unhappiness wallows, contentment nods again. But just now, on opening Education and the Significance of Life at random, I encountered the following:

"Life is pain, joy, beauty, ugliness, love and when we understand it as a whole, at every level that understanding creates its own technique. But the contrary is not true: technique can never bring about creative understanding."

I realise I was going to write about contentment as a technique. Just so many empty words. And can language learners risk contentment? Even young children need to stretch and apply themselves to acquire language, though this effort can largely be unconscious. An effective teacher will act as a catalyst and stimulate growth. The teacher, however, also needs to know how to get out of the way, lest the growth be stunted or curtailed. The life, the learning is integral to the learner, springs from within the learner, is the learner. There is an element of movement contained in this that the notion of contentment seems to restrict. At the surface level contentment appears to be static. Marc's focus on happiness is more dynamic.

Which has more meaning, fears from the past or fears for tomorrow?

If happiness is conducive to learning, it is worth considering the effect of other emotional states. From my own experience I know that fear is a murderer. One thing I inevitably warn my adult students about is that I am a dreadful speller. I have various memories of different teachers, and if I allow myself can still smell the bile in the ridicule that was sometimes heaped on pupils for bad spelling. I know that I consciously gave up trying to spell words at school and took refuge in a strategy of avoidance. That was because I feared the scorn.

Past fear, however, only goes so far in explaining present circumstances. One must keep recreating it to keep it in mind and to experience its effects. I do admit to a certain contentment when it comes to not learning to spell. By being a bad speller I can demonstrate to students both that teachers make mistakes and that it is OK to do so. In other words, I perceive my lack as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. More on this below.

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