Schooling and Unhappiness

State education today is focused on performance measured by exam results, as preparation for employment and university, rather than catering for individual happiness and freedom.

Obvious provisions, varying from school to school, are made for the happiness, guidance and wellbeing of students, but this is not assessed by the inspectorate in as thorough a manner as are attendance and exam results.

Whilst Ofsted reports, for example, attempt to appraise enthusiasm and co operation, this is done by inspectors observing lessons, rather than listening to the views of students. Ofsted simply doesn’t know how students feel about their education, and is not making a realistic effort to do so.

Perhaps this is a matter of practicality. Exam performance is a lot easier to measure than such abstractions as ‘happiness’ and ‘freedom’.

It may be true that happiness and wellbeing are difficult to quantify, but many things which our education system has already thought worth measuring it has managed to. Creativity, for example, is a similarly abstract quality, and yet it has been graded.

For example; in assessing ‘creative writing’ in the English Language GCSE, Exam Boards have interpreted creativity through criteria as the soulless use of similes and adjectives. This is a creative world in which the adjective “crimson” is objectively more effective than “red”, regardless of meaning or context, and in which similes and metaphors are used to prove intelligence to an examiner, rather than to enhance the content of the writing.

This is perhaps useless as a measure of creativity, and does nothing to aid real learning. However, the money and bureaucracy to do it were not in short supply.

Couldn’t we direct money and bureaucracy towards finding out how students really feel?

A 2004 study by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) of Nottingham schools revealed that only 27% of children rated their experience of secondary school as ‘positive’, compared to 65% in Primary schools. Only 12% said they found it ‘interesting ‘.

Hetnah Shah, the NEF's programme director for wellbeing studies said, "We need to look not at just vocational teaching, in terms of achieving an end like employment or exam success. We have to ask what is school actually preparing people for." 1

It also found that “the academically top-performing primary school has significantly lower well-being than other primary schools surveyed. This raises the question of whether there are trade-offs between academic success and promoting curiosity and personal development.”2

The study implies that with an increase in examination, curiosity and wellbeing goes into decline. It thus condemns the growing pressure of league tables and targets for its effect on happiness.

If this conclusion is confirmed in further studies, could it be used as the basis for reform?

Some in the U.S., such as educator Susan Ohanian, have called for a ‘Happiness Index’ in schools, to inform policy which would make schools happier places. She writes, “Why don't we ask high schoolers this question: What do you really want? Ask that--and shut up and listen to the answer.”3

It appears, in the UK at least, that the idea of listening to students as a crucial part of educational reform is unlikely to gain support from the government.

Michael Gove, education secretary, has made clear where his emphasis lies. In speaking about how we appraise schools, he said, “when Ofsted, the body which should be concerned with educational standards above all, is given 18 areas on which to judge a school and only a handful of them relate explicitly to educational attainment, then we are clearly not concentrating our energy and resources on education, education, education.” 4

Michael Gove, then, is already concerned that Ofsted looks too much into student wellbeing and a school's social atmosphere, instead of measuring educational attainment alone. By raising the academic rigor of examination, he hopes to make exams more reliable measurements of intelligence. This may improve educational standards, but as the sole gauge of a school’s success it will reduce children to data rather than human beings. *

It is unlikely that this government will ever take student happiness seriously, and so now is the time for young people and our advocates to start moving. Only through our combined effort can education be made to mean something more than data.


1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3662455.stm
2. http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/power-and-potential-well-being-indicators
3. http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=150
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrzFEyt8MvE

• Not wishing to stereotype Michael Gove, I’ll be writing a longer discussion of his views on this blog some time soon. Until then, (if you’re reading) I’d advise you to read his website or listen to the talk above to find out about his educational philosophy.