What makes us happy?

Three out of four ain’t bad! Dan Gilbert’s talk on happiness covers three of the four elements for the Personal and Social Capability: self-awareness, self-management and social management. His 20 minute talk which you can find on TED as well under the What makes us happy? playlist is both information packed and thought-provoking. He is an engaging speaker and so it is not difficult to absorb what he has to say . Dan Gilbert is the Professor of Psychology at Harvard and so what he has to say offers plenty of examples of experiments, physiological information about the brain and then the highlights well the problems we have in synthesising happiness and how our belief that choice is the answer – is not the answer at all. That we do not understand happiness very well is made clear and so all of what he offers in this talk has classroom implications for teachers and how they manage their students. It will also influence the tasks we design for the Personal and Social Capability. Well worth the listen and what ought to bring some good exchanges of ideas afterwards.