Sure, technology, particularly cell phones, plays a role. The deterioration in youth wellbeing accelerated, suddenly and dramatically, in 2012 as cell phone ownership among kids went from a privilege, to a necessity. Technology doesn’t just do things for us, it does things to us.

But I think there is a more prolonged  fundamental cause: The lack of what David Brooks calls a “web of institutions” providing a moral framework for our youth. This from his recent Atlantic Magazine article “How America Got Mean:”

“We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. In a healthy society a web of institutions – families, schools, religious groups, community organizations and workplaces – helps form people into kind and responsible citizens, the sort of people who show up for one another. We live in a society that is terrible at moral formation.”

Without this moral foundation, many of our youth live in a bewildering world, without clear expectations, guidance, without structure, without having an understanding of what it means and requires to live successfully.

The Historical Role of Educational Institutions

Until the middle of the last century, universities and public schools saw their role as enabling both academic success as well as moral and civic development. Here is how Donald Harward of Harvard University describes the very foundation of our liberal arts institutions.

“There has been, and remains, a ‘triad’ of interrelated core purposes of liberal education: the epistemic (coming to know, discovery and advancing of knowledge and understanding); eudemonic (the fuller realization of the learner, the actualizing of the person’s potential – classically, to achieve individual well-being and happiness); and the civic (the understanding that learning puts the learner in relation to what is other, to community and diversity, in the broadest sense, as well as the responsibility that comes from sustaining the community and the civic qualities that make both open inquiry and self-realization possible.”

As just one example, founded in 1831, Denison University’s mission is  “to inspire and educate our students to become autonomous thinkers, discerning moral agents and active citizens of a democratic society.” Clearly Denison’s mission goes well beyond the epistemic or academic purpose.

This triad of core purposes was not confined to higher education. I have my great grandfather’s McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader, published in 1866. A quick review of it shows that most every lesson in it had some moral or civic lesson.

But starting in the middle of the 1900’s schools began abandoning their role in moral and civic development. Why? Because most all of the moral and civic education was wrapped up in religion, specifically Christian religion … witness the McGuffey’s Reader. Given the diversity of our society and the desire to reach everyone, such abandonment is understandable, and within our public schools, essential.

Reconsidering the Role of Our Educational Institutions

But I don’t think religion has  a lock on morality or on living responsibly to the common good. Religion is just one way to teach or live these virtues. We can help students develop a moral and civic framework for their lives without treading into religion. Kindness, forgiveness, gratitude, consideration for others, love … aren’t these concepts universal and aren’t they essential to not only the success of the individual, but to the success of a society as well? These, what might be called wellbeing skills, like the skill of math or history or basketball can be taught.

And here is the really exciting part … we are finding that when students learn and practice wellbeing skills, their ability to focus, to concentrate, to perform academically is significantly improved. It is no secret that when students are anxious, depressed, lonely, they struggle to focus on their academics. Teaching wellbeing skills and teaching numeracy and literacy are incredibly synergistic.

Positive Psychologists have been working to identify a universal code of wellbeing skills. They looked for virtues and character strengths that were respected across all cultures and across time. In 2006, under the leadership of Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, the Handbook of Character Strengths and Virtues was published identifying 24 character strengths, categorized within 6 virtues. The character strengths include bravery, integrity, persistence, love, kindness, citizenship, gratitude, among others.

These character strengths and virtues are playing a foundational role in the emerging field of Positive Education which seeks to combine academic skills and skills that foster wellbeing, all designed to enable students to “flourish.” Here is how Felicia Huppert, a leading positive psychologist, defines flourishing:

“Flourishing is a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. It is synonymous with a high level of mental wellbeing and it epitomizes mental health.”

Isn’t flourishing what we want for our youth … for ourselves? Yes, to flourish we need a foundation of literacy and numeracy, but don’t we also need good relationships, meaning, kindness, to care for one another, to be resilient?

Positive Education is mapping out curricula that combines academic and wellbeing skills. Some countries, particularly Australia, are well ahead of America in pursuing this. They are finding that when students experience education focused on wellbeing and academics, they outperform those who have just academic training, doing 11% better academically. Where wellbeing education has been effectively put into Australian public schools, students are 6 months ahead of others on their NETPLAN, their national testing standard.

Education should be an outgrowth of the society within which it exist. I think the dramatic challenges in student wellbeing cries out for us to reconsider the role and pedagogy of our educational institutions. I believe positive educators are showing us exactly how to do this.

I hope you found this of interest. If you have any thoughts, please share them.

Be well … better yet flourish.