Teaching Happiness in School

Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm reflecting on teaching happiness in school. After all, happiness is a learnable skill, isn't it?

I believe happiness should come first. Then we can go off, do things, and achieve goals. That means we have to learn how to be happy first. But is that even possible?

Happiness Is a Learnable Skill

I’ve written a lot about happiness being a learnable skill. It’s based on Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research — and also on my personal experience of being very unhappy and learning how to be happy.

So if happiness is indeed learnable, why can’t we teach our children in school how to be happy? Isn’t that more important than history, physics, or maybe even maths?

Not that these subjects are unimportant, but wouldn’t the subject happiness be the foundation from which they can learn everything else?

What Kids Already Learn

To be fair, things have changed. I love how children today learn about emotions and boundaries. That’s certainly a shift from my school years, where feelings had no place in the classroom.

Visual arts, music, and sports are wonderful ways to express and release emotions. Writing helps process them, and reading can bring both knowledge and joy.

So it’s not all down the drain. But what else can we teach them that truly supports happiness?

Happiness and Relaxation

The red thread through my idea of happiness is relaxation — letting go and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. When we feel safe, we can rest and digest — but also learn, enjoy, and connect. Hence my belief that happiness should come first.

Could we make it an explicit goal that children feel safe in school? It’s ambitious, because every child’s nervous system is different and many are already challenged. But catering to these nervous systems could be a powerful focus for schools.

I guess what I suggest is to relax around learning — and around others. Making it a priority to talk about emotions, safety, and conflict could help children open up, learn better, and actually enjoy learning.

This learning should be playful — much more than it already is. Maybe even optional at times, especially for kids who need to first work on their sense of safety.

Yes, some children might not learn maths or reading as quickly as others. But that already happens — only that now it’s considered a problem. What if we turned it into a different priority?

Happiness and Connection

Connection is the magic ingredient in happiness. Connecting with ourselves (our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and habits), with others, with nature, with things, and with the bigger picture (spirituality) fills us with Oxytocin — the bonding hormone. It helps us trust, love, and relax.

And yes — relax, as in activating the parasympathetic nervous system again. Oxytocin helps us access that calm, safe state that underlies happiness.

School is one of our first social systems. It’s where we learn to navigate peers and authority. The more relaxed that beginning, the easier it will be to form supportive friendships.

Of course, we’ll still need to experience things ourselves to truly understand them. But if we learned to relax, share, and resolve conflicts together, it might all feel a little less lonely.

Happiness as a Subject

Instead of focusing on preparing children for a future career and fitting into not-so-human-friendly systems, let’s shift the focus to happiness.

Have a happy week!

Anja