This Friday, I went into the staff room before briefing and found a plaque with this infamous quotation in my pigeonhole. Along with the quotation by Haim Ginott about how a teacher’s “daily mood…makes the weather.” this has to be one of the most commonly used quotations about education. It is also a quotation I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with. After spending a good part of the morning stewing over who wanted to poke the bear on a Friday, I decided to correct it. If someone were to ask me how I want pupils to feel in my lessons, I would say that obviously they should feel safe, successful and confident. I think that all of these are components of long term happiness. However, I would stop short at saying that I aim for my pupils to be happy. As I discussed in my previous blogs “Where Fun Comes From” and “Satisfaction and success: infinitely better than fun”, I believe that happiness is not generic and therefore it is impossible to make pupils feel genui...
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