CLONINGER.
Here are my notes from the Cloninger speech.
Goal of education: help students live well.
Currently we are focused on preparing for the global economics.
Well-being: not lotus position on the beach at sunset; not just physical fitness either
Real well being: look at the whole person: spiritual, mental and physical all related/connected; should not separate them
Environments affect our well being- we don’t live in a vacuum, we live in a community and it affects our being; we are connected
Leonardo divinci quote: principles for the development of a complete mind
Health happiness creativity vitality, satisfaction of life
More than the absence of negative emotions/disease, it’s also the presence if positive
“The good life”- living well; well being shouldn’t be complex and hard to grasp; literally human; you spirit; I have a good inner spirit(good well being) in Greek
Living well is synonymous with well being to the Greeks
Our life today is so different today than our grandparents could understand; faced with climate change (climate has a fever and we are all getting sick), economic crisis, war, etc
There is a rise in illness (depression, anxiety, etc); depression was the third leading cause of death and disability, by 2030 it will be the first cause
Stress is killing us always
We know about living well than ever before in history but we don’t act like it
30% of Americans don’t exercise ever
Salt, sugar, and fat- we love it because we didn’t use to get it; now we have so much of it we don’t know what to do with it
An elephant can’t digest a happy meal with the amount of salt; but we feed it to our children celebrating
We get stressed and turn to temporary satisfaction and it goes away leaving us more empty; we need a deeper satisfaction
Our best chance at survival are our features that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom: love, hope, creativity, humor, spirituality, etc and we are utilizing it to our advantage
We don’t have time to do the very things that make us happy, we have to do other life things more
In education: when you ask students why they are learning they don’t know how to answer and we respond “you don’t want to work at mcdonalds do you?”
It’s because we make curriculum and methods the end of education; driven to get students to learn how to do education not learn how to do life and enjoy learning
The pursuit of a good life has fallen to the pursuit of a good job
Job preparation is necessary but not sufficient for a full life
Living well in the 21st century
Summary:
I really enjoyed listening to Kevin’s perspective on living well in the 2st Century. One of his first remarks really stuck with me– that the goal of education should be to help students live well. I was immediately intrigued and curious as to where he would be taking this conversation. It’s evident that we try to prepare kids for excelling at school and with grades rather than to live well. “The pursuit of a good life has fallen to the pursuit of a good job.” Why are we cultivating a culture that is so dark and uninspiring? We need to be building our classrooms up to enjoy learning and therefore enjoying all of life. His insights were very honest and eye opening.
