Spirituality as One of the Defining Characteristics of the Happy Person--- with Implications for the Impartation of Knowledge and the Discussion of Ethical Conduct in K-12 Education

One of my most thoughtful correspondents is undergoing some very significant life challenges and recently sent me thoughts with regard to the sustenance she feels given her firm faith in the abiding presence of the Divine in her life.   She offered additional thought-provoking observations on the Divine Copula, the Great I Am, Who is positioned to make that confidently definite statement and other firm comments on past, present, and future, while humankind is more often best positioned to say, "I may," or "I should" engage in some activity, or that something "will probably" happen. 

 

Remember now that in the New Salem Educational Initiative I never let go of a student once she or he has entered my personal universe:  Many of my students grow up knowing me through siblings and other family members, enter my academic program at Grade K, and continue right on into college or university studies.  I now have three students attending college or university, and I count several adults as my students.

 

I shared with the enormously perceptive and spiritually centered person mentioned in paragraph one above the fact that I just assisted one of my students with her speech for a college oratory class (she is in her second post-secondary year) on the topic that she ultimately selected after she and I had discussed numerous possibilities.  Her topic was "The Nature of Happiness and the Traits of the Happy Person";  inasmuch as her speech needed to be research based, I guided her to a Psychology Today article by psychologist David Myers that I used in a psychology class I taught in high school back in the 1990s, and toward a book (The Pursuit of Happiness) by the same author, along with several websites focused on the quest for human happiness.

 

Myers identifies five key qualities of the happy person, seeming to adopt my own distinction between happiness and joy, the latter of which is momentary and evanescent whereas the former is an abiding sensibility.  The five qualities are 1) a genuine sense of self-esteem;  2)  optimism;  3)  a perception of personal control over one's life circumstances;  4) extraversion (outgoing people tend confidently to form sustaining friendships);  and 5) a firm internalized spirituality at the core of one's being.

 

Myers does not identify a particular religion as part of that quintet of factors;  rather, whatever one's spiritual tradition or personal formulation, that sense of spirituality gives one a sense of life having purpose and meaning that contributes greatly to the happy life.

 

We should be aware of this compelling assemblage of qualities descriptive of the happy person as we anticipate overhauling K-12 education for the impartation of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum.

We should build in our students genuine self-esteem by giving them not fatuous praise but rather honest comment on academic accomplishment and ethical conduct.

We should instill in our precious young people a sense of optimistic hope for the future by giving them the excellence of education that leads to cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction;  and an implied sense of how they themselves can live ethically in the world and contribute to the progress of humankind.

With the knowledge and skill sets germane to an excellent education, imbued with a hopeful spirit, young people are likely in the extreme to go forth with a strong perception of control over their lives.

Such young citizens of the future will be comfortable in a multiplicity of human spheres of action, engaging  confidently with their fellows, effectively living in the mode of the extravert, as a matter of cultivated practice even when not a component of one’s original disposition.

And in our design of the most sustaining K-12 experience, knowledge of world religions and discussion of proper ethical conduct should be ever-present in our classrooms in the model for the locally centralized school district that will be the Minneapolis Public Schools.   


Students acquiring knowledge and contemplating ethical behavior via such ecumenical discussion are likely to grow in their own faith tradition, to understand the religious traditions of others, and to gain personal spiritual sensibility in such a way as to contribute to their own happiness and to the betterment of the experience of their fellows on this one earthly sojourn.  

Excellent K-12 education is the foundation for a better world, permeated by the presence of people with abundant knowledge and a firm sense of ethical conduct toward one's fellows.