(If You Want to Be Happy for the Rest of
Your Life…)
I would like to start this journey of Ethical
happiness with a story I once heard…
‘The cleaner about a persistent problem in
the girls’ toilets alerted a school headmistress: every day they were leaving
lipstick kisses on the mirrors. The cleaners had made notices asking for this
to stop, but it made no difference; so every afternoon they would wipe away the
kisses, and the next day lots more kisses would be planted on the mirror. It
had become a bit of a game. The creative headmistress asked a few girls from
each class to meet with her in the cloakrooms.
"Thank
you for coming," she said, "You will see there are several
lipstick kisses in the mirrors in this washroom." Some of the girls
grinned at each other. She continued, "As
you will understand, modern lipstick is cleverly designed to stay on the lips,
and so the lipstick is not at all easy to wash off. We have therefore developed
a special cleaning way, and I hope that when you see the effort involved, you
will help me spread the word that we'd all be better off if the girls used
tissue paper instead of the mirrors."
At this point the cleaner took a sponge
squeegee, which he then dipped into the toilet bowl, and used it to clean one
of the lipstick-covered mirrors.
The moment of truth! The cleaner and
headmistress smiled at each other, and there were no more lipstick kisses on
the mirrors.
I can’t remember when I first heard this
story, but it’s one of my favourites.
Ethics and values are central to morality - a human duty -
based on rational people's respect for other rational people. The ideas go as far back as Aristotle. Virtues such
as justice, charity and generosity benefit the person and the person's society. The guiding principle is based on
conduct which produces the greatest happiness or benefit to the greatest number
of people. True happiness in all human beings is directly linked to these
principles.
Recent research from the world of psychology repeatedly
proves that true happiness and mental health and well-being does not come from
the accumulation of wealth and all the delightful material things that money
can buy. These are very fleeting feelings. Research shows that once basic human
needs are met, additional income does little to raise life happiness. In
addition, “youth” is also no guarantee of happiness: In fact, older people are
more consistently satisfied with their lives than the young, and they are less
prone to dark moods. Watching TV and playing video games? Not at all! People
who spend more than three hours a day on all electronic media are more unhappy
than those who spend less time in front of the box or glued to their screens.
There is so
much knowledge and facts that we teach our children even from the tender age of
four –how the planets revolve around the sun in the solar system, how to do
simple sums like 4 + 2 = 6, now Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of
Waterloo, and that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen in a structure that
vaguely resembles Mickey Mouse. And of course it has been critical to teach all
this valid and useful information incredibly well so it sits in their beautiful
knowledge space for ever. But citing from the previously-mentioned research about
life-satisfaction, neither education nor for that matter a high IQ paves the
road to happiness.
When you
look at the problems that plague our children, their parents and all of us as
teachers, our education system falls short in the ethics and values domain. How
good are we at teaching our children to be kind to one another so that it is
obvious at a glance? Why can’t we educate them to stay away from verbal and
physical abuse so that they don’t become regular and active victims of
violence? There is no doubt that as we focus on the final “product” in our
educational endeavours, we neglect the process. We desperately need to teach
the skills and help them develop strategies for coping with stress and
hardships. There is no avoiding hard times, and apart from religion, the
secular beliefs enshrined in axioms like, “This
too shall pass,” and “That which
doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” also help a lot. The trick is that we
have to believe them and to live them.
All of the
concepts and ideas around, “What are we
living for? What is my purpose in life? How can I be the very best I can be?”
should be an integral part of our education – and they all relate to ethics and values! We need to focus more on
encouraging our children to seek out and examine the sufficiency and the logic
that endorses their own judgements and opinions, and that builds rather than
erodes their confidence and self-esteem.
For this to
be effective, we need to promote and examine the reasoning processes used by
our children to answer real questions that actually challenge them about “where
they live”, rather than resorting to an approach that is tied to information
accumulation that focuses on “the correct answer.”
I truly
believe that introducing ethical and values-driven issues into the school
curriculum should be the primary element that underlies our education
framework. Ethics and values are important in enabling our children to use
logical and rational reasoning skills in common difficult situations
encountered by them, and which will promote open-mindedness as we prepare them
to be better decision-makers in the future. These life lessons empower them
with capabilities and attitudes that foster the promotion and protection of
their personal development, as well as the well-being of their families, their
school, our nation, and ultimately the world.
There are
hundreds of examples of how we can do this, and I have included some
photographs with this article of various activities that we do with our
children. We help them identify and talk about their emotions and have empathy
towards others through warm/fuzzy as well as cold/prickly pictures and puppets
with sad, angry, scared, excited and happy faces. We use activities like baking
and gardening not just to produce delicious cookies or harvest tomatoes, but to
also foster cooperation and teamwork, and a sensitivity towards others’ needs.
We discuss issues around smart choices versus not-so-good choices by telling
stories, sharing examples and newsworthy stories, and describing scenarios in
which we ask, “What would you do if you were in this situation?”
We
use examples of unethical and ethicalbehaviours and activities to discuss themes
like drugs, alcohol and smoking, the natural environment and harming our planet,
unnecessary waste, wars and terrorism, the law, crime and corruption, animal
experimentation and cruelty, power-hungry leaders in politics and business, dishonesty,
withholding information, distortion of facts, misleading or confusing
communications or advertising, manipulation of people's feelings, deception,
trickery, rule-bending, and fooling people, exploitation of weakness and
vulnerability, excessive profit and greed, anything liable to harm or endanger
people, avoiding of blame or penalty for wrong-doing by taking responsibility,
gossiping, plotting and conspiring against others, secrecy and lack of
transparency, forcing people to do things they don’t want to, invasion of
privacy, trust betrayal, or anything causing privacy to be compromised, nepotism
(the appointment or preference of family members) and favouritism with ulterior
motives, racism, alienation or marginalisation of people or groups, questions
arising from conflicts of interests (having a foot in two or more competing
camps,)neglect of one’s duties or just not caring, “bystanding”or failing to
intervene or report wrong-doing, but without interfering anywhere and
everywhere, any unfairness, unkindness, lack of compassion and humanity, and
dozens of other examples. The possibilities are endless.
Finally, instead of trying
to arrive at a standard or all-encompassing rule of what is ethical, it is
helpful to illustrate the depth and variety of ethics through suitable discussions
that their minds can deal with at the appropriate age.
There are
lots of great books on this topic, but the bottom line is this: true happiness
and success in life as a child and as an adult comes from appreciating our
blessings and getting involved in the things that we love to do. But
interacting with other people in an ethical and values-driven way is also
critical! Perhaps we sometimes need to pause the pursuit of pure
knowledge, and focus on these issues to leave behind a legacy that our children
will remember forever.
Written By:
Member of Sella Messinia Blog News- Nemesis ( managing block)
Ιδιοκτησία πνευματικών δικαιωμάτων του SELLA MESSINIAS BLOG NEWS NEMESIS - © 2016.
Το περιεχόμενο του Blog αποτελεί πνευματική ιδιοκτησία του Sella Messinias Blog News Nemeis . Οποιαδήποτε πληροφορία (κείμενο, εικόνες, γραφικά) περιέχεται στο blog μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί μόνο για προσωπική, μη εμπορική χρήση. Είναι παράνομη η αντιγραφή, αναπαραγωγή, τροποποίηση με οποιονδήποτε τρόπο, μέρους ή του συνόλου των περιεχομένων του Blog χωρίς προηγούμενη έγγραφη συγκατάθεση ή αναφορά της σελίδας.
