Why I decided to create a high school class and write a book about happiness, kindness and altruism.

Graduation day is wonderful. The outpouring of positivity and pride amongst faculty, administration, parents, and students makes this day special. However, back in the early 2000s, an upsetting trend began to develop in the messages expressed in student graduation speeches. These speeches became a catalyst to the development of a high school course I created and later this book.

On this particular graduation day, the class valedictorian, an extremely positive individual and successful in so many domains, spoke about the shared experiences of classmates. The speech highlighted fun memories, experiences, and collective accomplishments. Then, the message of the speech shifted to the future.

The valedictorian shared various reflections from classmates about their schooling experience. These reflections revealed that the time in high school was marred with stress, anxiety, fatigue, and surviving high school. Then came the central premise of the speech. One of the benefits of graduating from high school was that students could finally look forward to experiencing something they had been lacking in their four years. There was a pause. Then came the big reveal. What was lacking was ‘happiness.’

Over the next five years, in student speech after speech, this similar sentiment was expressed. I was well aware of student stress at our high-performance school. The social and societal problems that affect young people are varied and nuanced.

On average, students across the United States are bored in school. The High School Survey of Student Engagement reported recently that 66% of high school students say they are bored every day. 82% of students reported that the material being taught wasn’t interesting or relevant to them.

High school graduates today are seeing increased rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and feel overwhelmed and chronically stressed. According to the Anna Freud National Centre in the U.K., the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in increased numbers of children and young people facing mental health challenges globally. Young people are experiencing increased rates of anxiety and loneliness as their satisfaction with their lives declines.

These mental health concerns are seen across college campuses. According to the American Council on Education, more than 80% of top university executives say that mental health has become a central priority on college campuses. More funding is being allocated to meet these increased mental health needs.

Teachers, parents, and administrators have talked about these trends for over two decades. Most adults see adolescents successfully balance the many demands of a stressful high school life: work, caring for younger siblings, sports, clubs, theatre, dance, friends, family, health, SAT prep, college preparation, etc. They also see young people excel at athletics, music, mock trials, debates, chess, math, theatrical performances, and many club endeavors.

Young people today are generally compassionate, generous, fun, inclusive, industrious, resilient, empathic, goal-oriented, and ambitious. Unfortunately, at different points of the year, many of these young people also happen to be miserable. In the hallways, these young people who begin the year with a spark in their eyes instead had worry, stress, frustration, and fatigue in those same eyes.

Many students have felt they were engaged in a Darwinian struggle for achievement and ‘success.’ They revealed that they frequently lie, cheat, and find ways to simply do school to get a grade. It is apparent to many other teachers, parents, and administrators that students were losing a sense of themselves.

Conversations with students were often filled with condemnations about assessments, grades, stress, homework, incidents involving micro-aggressions, inequities, lack of connections, problems with friends, problems with families, scarcity of leisure, fear of failure, lack of attainment of perfection in their lives, and all too high expectations for how life is supposed to be. Living during a global pandemic has only added to the list of concerns for young people.

Also in the mid-2000s, I was teaching modern World History and AP U.S. History. There was a sinking realization that these class lessons were transforming adolescents into misanthropes. The history of the modern world was generally described by students as an ‘awful history.’ From their perspective, modern world history was a progression of centuries where war-war-revolution-genocide-war-imperialism-war-genocide-revolution-war-colonialism-oppression-economic underdevelopment-famine-war-human suffering were recurring themes.

These are upsetting realities, but necessary case studies. This history provides insights and backstories to understanding the world and where we are today. The concern was young people were leaving at the end of the year with a myopic understanding of human nature and the positive possibilities of the present and the future.

Dwight Eisenhower warned us in his Presidential Farewell Address in 1959, about his concern over the fusion of informal and formal coalitions of groups, government, scientists, universities, and private corporations who were working to create a military-industrial complex which endangered the very fabric and heart of American democracy.

With standardization dictates and a devotion to an intangible cult of achievement, schools have been working to create, consciously or not, an academic industrial complex. A coalition of forces and unwarranted influences has led to a disastrous rise of misplaced priorities, actions, and behaviors. Schooling has gradually shifted to a survival of the academically fittest, often coming at the expense of individual needs, differences, and well-being. The reality is that many students perceive schooling as something to endure.

Real-world learning, nurturing the developmental needs of children, having fun, generating a school community, fostering agency and efficacy in school, academic experimentation, the leisure and experience of being a child, are being pushed aside in favor of multi-tasking, treadmill consumption of information, and a ritual of nightly homework. In fact, for some students, homework has become a Faustian bargain: not what students had to do, but rather a decision late at night about what ‘I can get away with not doing for tomorrow.’

Thus, the idea for a class about happiness, kindness, and altruism was born. I had hoped this class would inspire and engross students in a counter-narrative of human nature. I also wanted to provide the means to explore the complexities and possibilities of living a good and meaningful life, not only for ourselves but also for others.

Over the years, students often ask me, ‘Do you practice what you teach?’ The short answer is yes and no. While I am careful to maintain professional and personal boundaries, I often share my personal anecdotes and engage in debriefing discussions with them. I point out various research-based interventions that have had the greatest impact on my life.

However, I still fall prey to my old habits of thinking and behavior. These habits prove pernicious to my well-being, often creating inertia in my life. I am happy to say that I know which direction I’d like to point my life compass. This direction is towards joy, zest, and erring on being kind.

I understand there isn’t a finish line. Life experiences and habits often cause me to lose my way. At the very least, I know what I want for my life. If sharing my experiences with young people inspires or encourages them to do the same, then I am happy to model that in the classroom. I trust you will as well.