Although it has been given qualified approval by a number of philosophers of education, the so-called ‘therapeutic turn’ in education has been the subject of criticism by several commentators on post-compulsory and adult learning over the last few years. A key feature of this alleged development in recent educational policy is said to be the replacement of the traditional goals of knowledge and understanding with personal and social objectives concerned with enhancing and developing confidence and self-esteem in learners. After offering some critical observations on these developments, I suggest that there are some educationally justifiable goals underpinning what has been described as a therapeutic turn. Whilst accepting that ‘selfesteem’ and cognate concepts cannot provide a general end or universal aim of education, the therapeutic function is more valuable and significant than is generally acknowledged. This claim is justified by an examination of the concept of ‘mindfulness’ that, it is argued, can be an immensely powerful and valuable notion, which is integrally connected with the centrally transformative and developmental nature of learning and educational activity at all levels.

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Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Function of Education

The methodological approach that we have been developing for over 10 years in the Research Group on Pedagogy of Children Values, at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) is based on a pedagogical theory of children as active subjects. This article focuses on our last project “Growing up Happy” and addresses two main questions: a) what makes children feel happy, and b) how can we use this information for education. To explore these questions, we put the voices of the children themselves at the center of the research. With the financial support of Fundacion Crecer Jugando (Growing By Playing Foundation), we carried out field work at three public and two privately-subsidized Spanish Primary Schools involving students from first to sixth grades. As our interest is in education, our aims were twofold: to learn what children say, believe, and imagine, as well as to make recommendations for educational practice.

How to Grow up Happy: An Exploratory Study on the Meaning of Happiness from Children’s Voices

Although it has been given qualified approval by a number of philosophers of education, the so‐called ‘therapeutic turn’ in education has been the subject of criticism by several commentators on post‐compulsory and adult learning over the last few years. A key feature of this alleged development in recent educational policy is said to be the replacement of the traditional goals of knowledge and understanding with personal and social objectives concerned with enhancing and developing confidence and self‐esteem in learners. After offering some critical observations on these developments, I suggest that there are some educationally justifiable goals underpinning what has been described as a therapeutic turn. Whilst accepting that ‘self‐esteem’ and cognate concepts cannot provide a general end or universal aim of education, the therapeutic function—the affective domain of learning—is more valuable and significant than is generally acknowledged. This claim is justified by an examination of the concept of ‘mind...

Mindfulness, adult learning and therapeutic education: integrating the cognitive and affective domains of learning

The unfavorable comparisons between English and European vocational education and training (VET) systems made in the Wolf Report—and indeed in many national reviews of VET in Britain since the Royal Commission on Technical Education reported in 1884—point toward the low status of vocational pursuits in the United Kingdom compared with that in Continental Europe and elsewhere. In the light of these cultural differences, it is unlikely that structural, funding, or curriculum reforms alone will succeed in enhancing VET provision without corresponding changes in the value foundation of vocational studies. The reconstruction of VET requires a re-orientation of its foundational values if the reforms proposed by Wolf and others are to have any chance of lasting success. By the same token—although European and other national systems have their own peculiar problems—the global policy agenda concerned only with cognitive outcomes expressed as behaviorist skills and competences is, arguably, unlikely to meet the key challenges. A reconstructed model of VET needs to foreground the values, craft, and aesthetic features of vocationalism if the perennial problems are to be dealt with adequately. A reconstruction plan is suggested below, informed and inspired by the concept of “mindfulness”—non-judgmental, presentmoment attention, and awareness—drawn from Buddhist contemplative traditions. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in areas such as psychology, psychotherapy, medical science, and education have grown exponentially over the last decade or so, and interesting work is now emerging in relation to the value of mindfulness in workplace training.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244013520610

Reconstructing vocational education and training for the 21st century: mindfulness, craft, and values

Currently higher education strategies seem to concentrate on the expedient, developing skills that can secure employment in the world of work. This may have immediate advantages, but in totalising ...

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R. F. Dearden

Papers

Happiness and education