Thank you for an uplifting and productive first week of preplanning! So much productive energy, camaraderie, dialogue, consistent messaging, and ample time to prepare classrooms -- especially in the EED -- and plan with classroom and grade teams.
For me, there’s always a mix of excitement and worry as we begin prepping for and putting the finishing touches on what’s needed for a smooth start of school. I feel the same when I host Thanksgiving or Christmas!
Yet, preplanning is professionally fulfilling with its opportunities for to learn, grow, collaborate, and socialize together.
This year there’s special aura of esprit de corps. Let’s continue to build on this momentum and inaugurate the year with energy, positivity, purpose, and, of course, fun!
For those of you new to Trinity, most Fridays during the school year, I send out a summary of an article that piqued my interest and that I hope provokes thought in you as well.
I don’t agree with every article. In fact, I especially enjoy the ones that challenge me to reflect on my educational beliefs and even confront my educational biases.
This week’s article summary is What Makes People Flourish.
Finding personal and professional happiness and fulfillment is the life goal for most of us. Teachers are selflessly dedicated to their students, yet we need to ensure we’re attending to our needs as well.
The French philosopher Voltaire is often credited (somewhat erroneously) with the aphorism perfection is the enemy of the good. I know we strive to be perfect in all we do for our students, but as we gear up for the start of the school year, let’s accept there will be times when good enough will have to do. Give yourself grace to not be perfect every day of the school year.
According to the article, happiness and fulfillment (human flourishment) comprise six key dimensions:
- Life Satisfaction and happiness
- Physical and mental health
- Meaning and purpose
- Character and virtue
- Close social relationships
- Financial and material stability
As head into the new school year with responsibility for 602 students, think about how you help develop and support these flourishment dimensions in your students (excluding financial stability), colleagues, and especially yourself!
Enjoy the final weekend of summer break!
Joe
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What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. All agree that the good life is more than just feeling good − it’s about becoming whole.
More recently, researchers have focused on the idea of flourishing, not simply as happiness or success, but as a multidimensional state of well-being that involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment − an idea that traces back to Aristotle.
Flourishing is not just well-being and how you feel on the inside. It’s about your whole life being good. Things such as your home, your neighborhood, your workplace, and your friends all matter.
An international collaboration called the Global Flourishing Study annually surveys people to find patterns of human flourishing across cultures. Do people in some countries thrive more than others? What makes the biggest difference in a person’s well-being? Are there things people can do to improve their own lives?
The survey asks people about their lives, their happiness, their health, their childhood experiences, and how they feel about their financial situation. It looks at six dimensions of a flourishing life:
- Happiness and life satisfaction: How content and fulfilled people feel with their lives
- Physical and mental health: How healthy people feel, in both body and mind
- Meaning and purpose: Whether people feel their lives are significant and moving in a clear direction
- Character and virtue: How people act to promote good, even in tough situations
- Close social relationships: How satisfied people are with their friendships and family ties
- Financial and material stability: Whether people feel secure about their basic needs, including food, housing and money
We were surprised that in many countries young people are not doing as well as older adults. Earlier studies had suggested well-being follows a U-shape over the course of a lifespan, with the lowest point in middle age. Our new results imply that younger adults today face growing mental health challenges, financial insecurity, and a loss of meaning that are disrupting the traditional U-shaped curve of well-being.
Married people usually reported more support, better relationships and more meaning in life.
People who were working tend to feel more secure and happy than people who were seeking jobs.
People who go to religious services once a week or more typically reported higher scores in all areas of flourishing – particularly happiness, meaning, and relationships. It seems that religious communities offer what psychologists of religion call the four Bs: belonging, in the form of social support; bonding, in the form of spiritual connection; behaving, in the cultivation of character and virtue through the practices and norms taught within religious communities; and believing, in the form of embracing hope, forgiveness, and shared spiritual convictions.
Your early years shape how you do later in life. But even if life started off as challenging, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Some people who had difficult childhoods, having experienced abuse or poverty, still found meaning and purpose later as adults. In some countries, including the U.S. and Argentina, hardship in childhood seemed to build resilience and purpose in adulthood.
Some countries are doing better than others when it comes to flourishing.
Indonesia is thriving. People there scored high in many areas, including meaning, purpose, relationships and character. Indonesia is one of the highest-scoring countries in most of the indicators in the whole study. Mexico and the Philippines also show strong results. Even though these countries have less money than some others, people report strong family ties, spiritual lives, and community support.
Japan and Turkey report lower scores. Japan has a strong economy, but people there report lower happiness and weaker social connections. Long work hours and stress may be part of the reason. In Turkey, political and financial challenges may be hurting people’s sense of trust and security.
One surprising result is that richer countries, including the United States and Sweden, are not flourishing as well as some others. They do well on financial stability but score lower in meaning and relationships. Having more money doesn’t always mean people are doing better in life. In fact, countries with higher income often report lower levels of meaning and purpose.
The Global Flourishing Study is helping us see that people all over the world want many of the same basic things: to be happy, healthy, connected, and safe. But different countries reach those goals in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to flourishing. What it means to flourish can look different from place to place and from one person to another.
