Emotional happiness in education - Pedagogy and the pursuit of happiness

Against the background of a poorly discussed pedagogy of happiness the article aims at three objectives: First, some important aspects of the philosophical and pedagogical discourse of happiness are reconstructed and discussed in a systematic view. In doing so two different feelings of happiness will be distinguished ideally, the happiness of contemplative thought and the drive or lust-related feeling of desire. Second, a typology is designed to classify various forms of emotional hedonistic happiness in education: fun and joy, flow, satisfaction, harmony and well-being. W ithin these dimensions a further distinction is implicitly drawn between a present emotion, as in fun and flow, and a prevailing mood of happiness (in daily life), as in joy or well-being. In addition it will be distinguished between current feelings and emotional dispositions; emotional dispositions-such as well-being or the attitude of happiness-will be seen as the essential anthropological background for active feelings. T hirdly, the article shows how feelings of happiness can be pedagogically connected to the educational promise of happiness in modern times. Feelings of H appiness can be regarded as indicators of what is important to people in their lives, because they provide perspectives and values of a fulfilled life. In a pedagogical perspective it is important to consider emotions of happiness as resources and to make use of them without being able to ultimately dispose of them. Following the pursuit of happiness, pedagogy as a science of biography pursues an holistic claim. Insofar pedagogy gains a never-ending task. © VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2011.