When I was a child, parents often said to my children: work hard and be admitted to a key high schoolWhen I went to high school, I said that if I worked hard for another three years, I would be able to go to college.
When they go to college, these children find that their academic requirements are higher, their peers are more competitive, and the pressure is greater, so they think: survive college, finish graduate school, and be liberated when they work.
It's hard to get a degree and find a job, but the interpersonal relationships, performance competition and life pressure in the workplace are still miserable, and many people are more envious of the simplicity and purity of student days or rural life.
What does education really bring to people?Is education just a tool for competition, selection, motivation or punishment?This is Professor Wen Dongmao of the School of Education of Peking University on the question of education.
Why hasn't education significantly improved happiness?If reading doesn't promote happiness, why keep persuading children to read?
Professor Wen Dongmao was born into a poor peasant family, but he was not defeated by difficulties, but firmly believed that knowledge can change destiny and bravely pursued his dreams. Education has become his academic and career, and has become the value and meaning of his life. He integrates his own experience and perception into his teaching, and strives to explore the concept of happiness education that combines the excellent traditional Chinese culture with positive psychology.
After years of theoretical research and practical exploration, he finally found a unique education model - peace of mind and happiness education, and carried out a pilot project of peace of mind and happiness education in hundreds of schools in more than 10 provinces and cities across the country, which not only helped countless students realize their dreams, but also won high praise from all walks of life.
What is happiness?Traditional Chinese culture has given the answer, Confucius said: "Cultivate oneself to appease others." Wang Yang said: "This peace of mind is happiness." "Happiness is not a pleasure of comfortTrue happiness is the peace of mind that is constantly striving for goodness, and a good education should guide people to constantly strive for goodness
Why should you care about education and well-being?
Education changed the fate of Professor Wen Dongmao. Born in a poor peasant family, he lost his father at the age of nine and his mother at the age of ten. After graduating from junior high school at the age of fifteen, he was admitted to the middle school teacher and jumped out of the "farm gate".
After graduating from the middle school, he was fortunate to get the only opportunity in the class to be sent to university, and after graduating from university, he became one of the few people who stayed in school to teach, and after graduating from the doctorate, he was able to work in a famous university in Beijing.
Professor Wen is like the "lucky one" who is envied, and he is also praised as "someone else's child". Therefore, Professor Wen is full of gratitude for education. Education is as much his career as it is his education. Before he knew it, he had been engaged in the study and research of pedagogy for nearly forty years.
Because of his gratitude, he felt a responsibility to make education better and better;Because of his identity, he prefers to hear praise and affirmation for education.
But not everyone is as fortunate as he is, and education not only does not benefit everyone, but even brings great suffering to countless people;The problem of education may not be in the details, but should be cleared up from the original intention, the source and the root.
People admire prestigious schools, endure all kinds of pressure and pain for a long time, and sacrifice money, time, and even health and family affection just to be admitted to a prestigious school.
However, being admitted to Peking University and Tsinghua University does not guarantee that "you will live a happy and beautiful life from now on". The proud sons of heaven in prestigious schools are in a high degree of "involution", some are depressed and drop out, and a high proportion of people suffer from "hollow heart disease". Can education really improve people's destiny?
Dr. Xu Kaiwen, the former student mental health education and counseling center of Peking University, proposed the concept of "adolescent hollow heart disease", arguing that children's scores are getting higher and higher, but their motivation to learn is getting lower and lower, and their creativity is getting worse and worse.
If you look at university teachers, they have received many years of good education, they have knowledge, status, and they are not badly paid, but many of them only live in scientific research, publications, professional titles and titles.
In the process of title review, they have to compete with many equally excellent colleagues every time, and the reviewers all think that they deserve it and deserve it, and those who are not rated are furious, complaining, fighting and interpersonal tension have become the norm. Their quality of life is not necessarily high, and there is no shortage of suffering, and there are not a few people who die before they grow old or even die in middle age.
There are many green peppers on the Internet who complain about "either rising or leaving", and even "not rising but walking" experience.
Professor Wen often wonders why a group of people who are so smart and hardworking torture each otherAfter reading so many books and doing so much research, why can't you make your life more comfortable and happier?
Looking at primary and secondary school teachers, many people think that they have a lot of class hours, miscellaneous affairs, long working hours, high pressure, low status and salary, parents do not support and understand, students do not respect teachers, are not easy to learn, etc., so they are often in complaints and burnout.
As educators and representatives of "readers", if teachers are not happy, will others be happier?If reading doesn't promote happiness, why keep persuading children to read?
This led Professor Wen to question the fundamental purpose and value of education: is education really the noblest cause under the sun?Is his life's work in education really meaningful and something to be proud of?
Education is going in the wrong direction and is not doing its job in promoting happiness in life;And as an educational researcher, there must be some kind of responsibility. As a result, Professor Wen began to focus on the relationship between education and happiness.
Isn't education supposed to be blissful?
Why is education not effective in promoting happiness?How can education contribute to the long-term well-being of everyone?
Observing the reality with these two "educational questions", Professor Wen reminds us that no one in primary school, middle school or university, whether it is a prestigious school or an ordinary school, a vocational school or a special school, is carrying out special "happiness education".
Looking at the academic circles, the long history of human psychology has mainly focused on "negative psychology", the rise of positive psychology is only in the last two decades, and the systematic research and discussion of education and happiness in the academic community is even shorter, and there are few scholars specializing in "happiness education".
However, happiness education is actually an eternal topic, from the rationalist concept of happiness of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the sensual concept of happiness of the Stoics, to the utilitarian Bentham and Mill, and then to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, etc., there are special discussions on the issue of happiness.
Shakyamuni became a monk in order to transcend human suffering;Confucian Confucius and Mencius were all discussing "happiness", and the "Analects" began with the three joys of life: "Learn and learn from time to time, don't you also say it?"Friends come from afar, and they are happyPeople don't know and are not ashamed, and they are not gentlemen”；Mencius also has "three pleasures of a gentleman", and "to get the world's talents and educate them" is one of them.
In the view of the ancient sages, learning and education are inherently blissful, and they have been teaching wisdom about happiness. The failure of education today to promote happiness may be due to the forgetting of the teachings of the sages.
Regarding happiness, Wang Yangming's words are the most inspiring: "This peace of mind is happiness." (Biography, Qian Dehonglu).
Cai Shixin: Portrait of Mr. Yangming, 1567, now in the Shanghai Museum.
Happiness is not just simple happiness, but inner "peace of mind". If people's hearts are restless, anxious, sorrowful, apprehensive, and fearful all day long, how can they be happy?If a man is at ease, what more could he ask for?
Regarding how to achieve peace of mind and happiness, Confucius taught us to "cultivate ourselves to appease others" and "cultivate ourselves to appease the people".
"University" further completely expounds the way of Xiuqi Zhiping's life happiness: "The way of the university is in Mingmingde, in being close to the people, and in stopping at perfection." Knowing and then there is certainty, and then there is stability, and then it can be quiet, and then it can be peaceful, and then it can be considered, and then it can be obtained. ”
The real way to learn lies in constantly refining morality, improving the realm of the pattern, getting close to and caring for others from the heart, and pursuing perfection and never slacking off. Only in this way can we be calm and peaceful, and then we can think carefully and discerningly, and really gain something. This kind of "gain" is not only knowledge and truth, but also happiness in life and even peace in the world.
True happiness is peace of mind that is constantly striving for good. To continue to strive for goodness is to achieve conscience, the unity of knowledge and action;Only by constantly striving for goodness can we be worthy of our conscience and gain lasting peace of mind.
Peace of mind, not just ease and pleasure, is the happiness that everyone should and can pursue;Striving for goodness is the way we should pursue and teach our children happiness.
How can education contribute to people's happiness?
If happiness is the ultimate goal of life and human beings, then education is the basic means and way to enhance happiness. Based on the concept of happiness that "happiness is the peace of mind that is constantly striving for good" and the happiness education model of "one body and two wings", Professor Wen put forward four basic frameworks:"Enlightenment and peace of mind", "self-cultivation", "happy family" and "happy school".
He also combined the research results of traditional culture and contemporary pedagogy, psychology and the practice of happiness education, and put forward many specific practical tools such as determination first, reading reason, happiness log, everyone culture, happy family letter, family meeting, happy parent-teacher, happy small class meeting, happy little angel, happy little friend, etc.
The following four aspects seem simple and simple, but in fact, they have carried out creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional culture, and various views and practices are well-founded, and uphold the original intention and mission of "education should promote the long-term happiness of all people", which can be said to be universally applicable to people with different levels of knowledge.
Mingdao peace of mind
There is a saying in "The New Language of the World": "The blind man rides a blind horse, and is in the middle of the night in the deep pool", which refers to the situation of the "unknown", which is not only frightening, but also full of danger and disaster. On the other hand, the clear path is at ease, because in the world of light, the problems in the darkness do not exist at all.
How can we achieve true peace of mind?In the Analects, Confucius tells us: "The wise are not confused, the benevolent are not worried, and the brave are not afraid", that is, to reach the realm of the wise, benevolent, and brave people, and follow the requirements of wisdom, benevolence, and courage, we will get rid of confusion, anxiety, fear, and other uneasiness, and obtain a reasonable, responsible, and unashamed peace of mind.
The wise are not confused. 
The benevolent are not worried. The brave are not afraid.
Self-cultivation-oriented
"University" has a saying: "From the Son of Heaven to the common people, all of them are based on self-cultivation." "Self-cultivation is the foundation of human beings, and it is also the fundamental way to achieve happiness in life.
On the one hand, the goodness, virtue, and character that conform to human nature should be carefully cared for and cultivated, that is, self-cultivation and "sexuality";On the other hand, people's habits, selfish desires, and evil thoughts should be discovered in time and constantly pruned and eliminated, that is, corrected and corrected. It can be seen that self-cultivation is not only the cultivation of "deeds" in the body, words and deeds, so that people behave appropriately and politely, but more importantly, the cultivation of virtue and mind, the cultivation of "sex" and the cultivation of "Tao".
In the Analects, Confucius not only depicts the state of life with peace of mind, but also points out the way to cultivate the "Three Virtues", that is, "learning is close to knowledge, practice is close to benevolence, and knowledge of shame is close to bravery".
The purpose of the University is also completely consistent with this exposition: "The way of the university is to be virtuous, to be close to the people, and to stop at the best", "to be virtuous" is to be virtuous through diligence and studiousness, to be "close to the people" is to be benevolent and good through practice and true action, and "to be good" requires perseverance, courage and self-improvement.
Life should reap peace of mind and happiness in the continuous struggle for goodness, and education should help people to continue to strive for goodness, so as to enhance peace of mind and happiness.
Happy family
Self-cultivation has laid the foundation and direction for the Qi family, governing the country, and leveling the world, and the Qi family, governing the country, and leveling the world are the natural embodiment of the results of self-cultivation.
Self-cultivation is done in the process of reassuring others, and self-cultivation is to achieve the happiness of the family, society, and country, and then to achieve one's own happiness.
The peace of mind happiness education system advocates the happiness education model of "one body and two wings", "one" is self-cultivation, and "two wings" is "happy family" and "happy school".
The way to family happiness also lies in the fact that family members are like-minded with each other, love each other, and strive for goodness.
Happiness School
How can we make school a place where teachers and students feel happy?Efforts should be made to make the school a big family that helps people to continue to strive for goodness and peace of mind. In this big family, the campus is like a home, teachers and students are like relatives, everyone loves each other, fulfills their responsibilities and grows together.
This big family should not only lay the foundation for the happiness of students' lives, but also let them feel the peace of mind and happiness of every moment;Not only should students pursue happiness, but teachers and parents should also feel happiness in this big family, create happiness, and even become role models for happiness.
As a teacher, only when we truly preach the Tao, teach and solve doubts, set an example for others, and learn from each other, can we be described as "responsible and at ease";As a student, you should strive to achieve the harmony of knowledge and action.
1. Students make progress together, grow independently, continue to be good, and reap the peace of mind of growth.
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Peace of mind and happiness education
Author: Wen Dongmao.
Borrowing wisdom from traditional culture, how education can promote the long-term happiness of everyone.