A Christmas Message

These are the words of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba the Chinese e-commerce giant at an OECD conference this month at which the latest PISA results were announced.  The OECD’s PISA tests (standing for Programme for International Student Assessment), are administered every three years and used—by some—to measure which countries are best preparing their students for the future. The OECD is trying to change the test to be about more than academics, in part to encourage countries to view education beyond traditional subjects. In the latest test, it assessed global competency (What is our Global Context?), asking students to express how they relate to others and what they think of their lives and their future; in the next test, in 2021, it will assess creative thinking.

Well-being

OECD also regularly asks students questions about their wellbeing, including measures of belonging and life satisfaction (WHAT is student wellbeing?). Results from the latest wellbeing study are concerning with only about two-thirds of students saying that they were satisfied with their lives. One of my highlights this year was working with the International School of Bologna, co-facilitating a two day workshop for all staff exploring a whole-school approach to well-being. Whilst not ignoring the importance of academics the school were focused on creating a well-being ecosystem that developed students' character strengths and positive mindsets. I have tried to capture our learning at WHY focus on student wellbeing? | HOW can we teach wellbeing?  and PS: Wellbeing and the secrets of a long life.

Human Flourishing

And that is where Jack Ma resonates with the OECD’s message that education systems need to move from being traditional exam factories to places where students learn content, but also self-knowledge, empathy, teamwork and agency. Last century, he said, was won by muscle, while this one will be won with wisdom. Or as he put it another way, “last century we win by caring about myself, this century we win by caring about others.”

Many educators acknowledge that education needs to change its key performance indicators, away from them being shackled to a traditional exam system towards recognising that education is about human flourishing. As Jack Ma says: “University does not mean you are guaranteed a job." He doesn’t hire from MIT and Harvard because of the names, but because the people come “ready to learn their whole lives.” In a memorable zinger, he said that a university degree was nothing more than a “receipt for the tuition paid.”

What is the purpose of education? Few would argue with the widely shared ambition to continue to raise the bar and improve academic standards, supporting young people on their journey to thrive in adult life and in the workplace. However, the current definition of educational outcomes, the focus on accountability and a criterion for success that places a dominance on academic progress is at the expense of models of schooling grounded in human development. Education is about more than the flight towards academic success. It is, at its heart, about human flourishing.

This exploration of human flourishing is a timely counterpoint to the growing pressures on young people of academic performance. A complete education is one that nourishes the mind, body and spirit. The whole child is the whole point. Several questions act as leitmotifs:

• Who are you?
• Why are you here?
• What drives you?
• Who are you dancing for?
• Who inspires you and how?
• What kind of person do you want to become?
• What is the nature of your CV – the ‘course of your life’?
• How then shall you live?

A key aspect of learning to flourish is the ability to better confront failure. “It is not natural for people to help you,” he said. “You need to learn to be rejected and refused.” Indeed, he was rejected from Harvard 10 times. Last week I attended an end of term Prize Giving at a school where the speaker, a Major in the British Army, chose the same message, choosing the opening words of Scott Peck's book The Road Less Traveled: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

Christmas is an opportunity to take a step back and reflect on what our schools are about: places that nurture well-being and human flourishing; where we not only nurture IQ but also EQ and LQ. Well-being is connected with people thriving and flourishing. In the world of education the roots of education as a nurturing in well-being go back to Aristotle. More recently talk of human flourishing are found in the work of 'positive education' where the focus is on who are children are when they leave school, who are they learning to be? (Wellbeing and human flourishing)