Education and Happiness

Happiness and having fun in a classroom are important, but in my experience must be based on clear expectations of what the children will learn, supported by rigorous planning, teaching and assessment. A classroom that is just focused on "children being happy" can leave children adrift and unsure of what they are meant to be doing, which is not a long-term recipe for success or happiness.

They were saying on the Today programme this morning that people who read are more able to understand other people and social situations.

Mamie, I so agree with you.

It was clever of the Today progamme to recognise that speech is the basic structure on which thought grows. The more vocabulary you have, the more grammatical structures you have at your disposal the more complicated your thought processes can become. The better you can thnk and especially objectively, the easier you will find to understand other people and yourself in order to plan your life. Reading is a continuation of this and is important for the enlargement of your vocabulary and knowledge.
School can not teach happiness but facts about the world. That is what school is for. Of course school must create an atmosphere where stress or unhappiness don't prevent a child from learning.

Agree with most of your post Maggie, but education is not just about teaching facts. I can't create an exhaustive list off the top, but love of learning, concentration, research skills, a spirit of enquiry, the ability to work independently and in a team, an ability to reflect on things, are the ones that spring to my mind at the moment. I am sure there are others. Of course, to that you need to add good skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT to enable the children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding in other subjects.

I said teach the facts of the world. You cannot develop a love of learning unless you are learning facts and then adding new facts to these and so on. For that you then learn concentration because that is what you need in order to do it. Research skills are only possible if you already have a lot of facts whether in science or geography or whatever. From a standpoint of knowing something you then research to find more in order to get to know more.

I live in Germany where all educated people speak English ( and a lot French or Spanish as well). Are they gifted at languages, are the Swedes and the Dutch gifted at languages? Do these languages fly to them in a dream? No! They have all learnt English the hard way by slogging at it and learning vocabulary. I don't know if in class they were asked if they were happy. I think regarding English they are motivated but it was still hard work.
But I do know that learning something, swotting at it and persevering and succeeding makes you happy. Very happy indeed.

Childhood is not only for being happy and carefree, it is to fit you for the world you are going to live in.

Oh I see - I thought you meant facts as in kings and queens, capes and bays. Yes of course you need to acquire knowledge as building blocks as you acquire the skills to learn more. As far as languages are concerned, here in France people (in my experience) do not often speak English very well. I have had pupils who have been told "If you don't think it is right then don't say it", which I think is madness if you are learning a language.

That can happen in France . The French are also fussy about hearing incorrect French from foreigners. At least in Paris, I find it easier in the South of France.

The main thing is that our grandchildren learn real subjects and even the practical ones need some maths skills. It has been said on this thread that practical children dont get enough encouragement. In my experience the best practical work was done by people who were brainy as well. Either hands or heads is too simple.
The kids are 11 years at school. It must be enough to read, write and do enough maths to get you through a normal day. What is going wrong when so many are leaving without these basic skills? Were these happy children? I don't think so. More discipline, smaller classes and no computers in junior schools. That would help.

Well sorry to bang on about this Charlotta, but I don't accept that "so many" are leaving without basic skills. The figure reaching Level 4, which is a good level of literacy and numeracy, is around 80%. Level 3 does not equal illiteracy or innumeracy. Actually, much of the writing on forums (absolutely not aimed at this forum or anyone in particular) would not be judged as a Level 4.
I think that ICT is a very important part of the curriculum for pupils in primary schools; in my view it is essential that we teach children to use technology appropriately and to understand its uses and misuses.

What I don't understand is, when 80% are leaving school with level 4 literacy and numeracy, what is Michael Gove on about then? That seems to be a number any country could be proud of. I don't think you can judge literacy by the blogs and twitters on Forums. This seems to be another use of language altogether and if the standard really is so low then it must be the other 20%
writing.
But returning to the original thread, I think the school system in the States is the one where happiness is considered all important at least to the fortunate few who go to good schools in a good area where the teachers have parental support.
If you weren't happy at school but learnt enough to pass exams then the time wasn't wasted. When you have got your pieces of paper to say you have passed this and that, then you are free later to really do something you think is important. Nobody wants to see an unhappy child but as a rule children with enough food and sleep and a normal homelife aren't unhappy and possess the ability to make the most out of life at that age. If the basics are missing then the child will be unhappy but then no school or learning method can aleviate their unhappiness completely.

Totally agree with your second paragraph Charlotta.
I think very few politicians seem to understand how much hard work it has taken to get the Level 4 percentages to where they are at the end of primary education. Another figure you never see quoted is that about a third of children aged 11 actually achieve a Level 5, which is the expectation for age 14.
Of course there are still pockets of underachievement such as boys' writing and it is proving very hard to get past the 80% figure, but as I have said many times, there are no easy solutions here.

If I may go back to the subject of languages; we don't start to teach foreign languages early enough in this country. Children need to start to learn a language in the early primary stage, when their enthusiasm and capacity for it is likely to be at a much greater level than when they reach secondary school, by which time many appear to be burdened by embarrassment at having to speak in a language other than their own (let alone get to grips with the grammar) and therefore lack the enthusiasm and drop the subject at the earliest opportunity. It seems to me that few primary schools compulsorily teach a language, though many have extra curricular language lessons on a voluntary basis and I think maybe we are missing a trick here.

The Primary Languages strategy was brought in several years ago and is introduced in Key Stage 2 (7-11). I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I know it is going well in the Local Authority where I used to work. It is a Europe-wide strategy and I have taught English to primary school children here in France. I don't know if cuts to education budgets will impact on it, but it wouldn't surprise me; you have to put money into in-service training for teachers to make it work.

I think children should learn another language from grade 1, ie 5 years old. At that age it can be all fun and songs and play-acting. I understand they are very good at the 'immersion' method in Canada, to teach English speaking children French and the other way round. If you can get some decent second language teaching in to children before puberty, they have a good chance of becoming fluent.

Here in Australia there are parents who object to this, saying they should concentrate on English and get that right first, but the truth is, learning a second language does wonders for your English, especially grammar. It also teaches children about other cultures: you can't learn a language without learning about the culture too, and this is a great tool to combat racism and ethnocentric attitudes.

Also, having a second language, or more, is now known to combat dementia: it must be something about the different thought processes involved in thinking in different languages.

As for happiness in education: this is achieved through good teaching, and good planning. History and geography, English literature, foreign languages, sciences, maths, etc can all be extremely interesting to learn, especially with modern teaching aids. I still remember my first fortnight of Latin at age 12. The teacher simply told us tales of ancient Rome, of life there, of battles, of the Romans in Britain - I was spellbound. Then he started teaching the language - Latin is very hard but we enjoyed it - well most of us anyway.

So true,*Joan*. Before I started Latin and French, at 12, I could be quite careless about spelling, but then, miraculously, I stopped making mistakes and have been a good speller ever since. When I taught in Africa, I only ever had one pupil who was a seriously bad speller, though our girls were, admittedly, the 'creme de la creme'.

Joan, I am glad you raise the Canadian immersion method. When my daughter was eight, we were based at a large NATO headquarters in Europe. She was offered the chance to join the French immersion class with the Canadian children because her teachers thought, being bright, she needed to be stretched. There were other British and American children in the class also and, apart from the first few weeks, they spoke and wrote nothing but French (it did not impact on her written English - probably helped it). This for the two and a half years we were there. When we came home, with less than a year to complete at junior school, no one knew quite how to take it forward as they then had no facility teaching languages to that age group. Languages were not tackled until year one at comprehensive. We engaged a tutor to maintain the conversational momentum and when she went up to the local comp her command of the language was so far in advance of everyone else, it became a real problem. The head of languages said she could have taken her GCE at that stage, and it needed to be fostered, but the headmaster did not believe in "fast-tracking". At the end of the day, they did agree to make an exception, so she did not lose the advantage she had gained, and she eventually went on to do French, German and European Business Studies at Uni. Children take to the immersion method surprisingly well. My son, aged three, attended a French speaking kindergarten in Belgium for a year and the English and American children seemed to understand everything that was said to them.

Yes, Artygran, little children have an amazing ability to pick up the languages around them naturally, and I feel it is such a shame to waste this. Unfortunately few children have the opportunity to do it, regardless of how much their parents might want it for them. I'm glad it worked out for your daughter.

I heard about the Canadian immersion method when I did my TESOL course (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and it seemed so logical to me.