Table Of ContentExploring Well-being in Schools
Can we teach others how to lead a fulfilling life? The notion of personal well-
being has recently shot up the political and educational agendas, placing the
child’s well-being at the heart of the school’s work.
With his renowned talent for distilling the most complex of philosophical
arguments into accessible laymen’s terms, John White addresses the maze of
issues surrounding well-being, bringing clarity to this dissension and confu-
sion. This accessible book expertly guides you through the conflicting
perspectives on well-being found in the educational world by:
• examining religious and secular views of human fulfilment and of a
meaningful life;
• analysing the appeal of celebrity, wealth and consumerism to so many of
our children;
• asking what role pleasure, success, autonomy, work, life planning and
worthwhile activities play in children’s flourishing;
• showing how proposals to encourage children’s well-being impact on
schools’ aims and learning arrangements.
Whether you have little background in education and philosophy or are read-
ing as a teacher, student or policy-maker, this engaging book will take you
right to the heart of these critical issues. It will leave you with a sharply
focused picture of a remodelled educational system fit for the new
millennium, committed to helping every child to enjoy a fulfilling life.
John White is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Education at the
Institute of Education University of London, UK.
Exploring Well-being in
Schools
A guide to making children’s lives more
fulfilling
John White
This edition published 2011
by Routledge
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© 2011 John White
The right of John White to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN 0-203-81554-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-60347-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-60348-5 (pbk)
ISBN13: 089-0-203-81554-0 (ebk)
For Patricia, Louise, Jamie, Rolf and Bonnie Rae
Contents
Introduction 1
PART 1
Well-being and education, step by step 9
1 Children’s well-being in the new millennium 11
2 Initial questions 15
Issues for education 17
3 Well-being: some religious legacies 20
Issues for education 24
4 Well-being and need satisfaction 27
Issues for education 29
5 Fame, wealth and positional goods 33
Issues for education 38
6 A life of pleasure 41
Issues for education 45
7 Getting what we want 48
Issues for education 54
8 Worthwhile activities 58
Issues for education 63
9 Work and well-being 68
Issues for education 72
10 Living the good life: well-being and morality 77
Issues for education 82
viii Contents
11 Are there experts on well-being? 86
Issues for education 93
12 Depth without spirituality? 96
Issues for education 103
13 The meaning of life 107
Issues for education 109
PART 2
Education for well-being: the way forward 111
14 What well-being is: a summary 113
15 Well-being for all in a more equal society 116
16 Education for well-being: the wider picture 121
Priorities 121
Schools and families 124
Taking aims seriously 126
Well-being aims: a first look 129
The primacy of dispositions 131
Knowledge and understanding 134
Rethinking the curriculum 135
17 Education for well-being: learning arrangements 137
Well-being as a school subject 137
The place of subjects 138
Compulsion and choice 138
Working and learning 139
Collaborative and solitary learning 140
Discussion 141
Assessment 141
Conclusion 144
Further reading 146
References 148
Index 150
Introduction
In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, the
average standard of living in Britain would have risen eight-fold and there
would be a 15-hour working week (Skidelsky, 2009). By then, he thought,
people would have turned away from economic goals towards enjoying a
fulfilling life.
We are now under twenty years from Keynes’s target. The average
standard of living is five times greater than in 1930, but working hours are
still long. We persist in getting and spending. Keynes’s vision of well-being
for all seems to have receded far into the distance. Or has it?
Whether or not the millennium made people think of fresh starts, it has
been hard not to notice, since 2000, a new preoccupation with a happy life.
The media keep returning to it: yesterday’s Guardian Review, for instance,
carried a three-page feature, fronted by a huge clown face, proclaiming that
‘the pursuit of happiness is making us miserable’. Schools have made the
headlines with happiness lessons. The late Labour government put children’s
well-being at the heart of its policy for schools and families.
We will not realise Keynes’s dream by 2030, but we might just be recon-
necting with it. This book is a nudge in that direction. It is about what
education can do to speed the arrival of the well-being society.
Schools as we know them can be strange places. A god-fearing science
teacher on the radio this morning was telling us how, although he disbelieves
in the theory of evolution, he teaches it to his boys so that they can do well
in public examinations. I’m less interested here in the religious aspects of this
– although I’ll be coming back to related matters – than in the implication
that schooling is, centrally, about exam success.
We should have left this sad piece of nonsense behind us with the twenti-
eth century. Its schools were caught up in a regime of getting on, doing ever
better, getting more and more efficient – but within a system that had lost
sight of what it was about. This book presents a new vision. It suggests that
schools should be mainly about equipping people to lead a fulfilling life.
In one way, this sounds banal: isn’t this what we all expect of them? In
another, it is anything but. If we were really aiming at fulfilment and had a
