The Future of Education

This paper explores the pedagogy, problems, and prospects of teaching a multidisciplinary course on Happiness and Suffering in tertiary level. Based on my personal experience teaching in Singapore, in this presentation, I address the following questions: why is there a need to offer a course on Happiness and (its apparent opposite) Suffering among university-level students; what pedagogical and instructional methods are effective or necessary in teaching Happiness and Suffering; and finally, how did students perceive happiness or what changed in their perspectives on happiness and suffering after taking the course? This presentation is meant to offer my preliminary reflections as well

as questions about the need to offer more courses that are meant to question student’s critical thinking and perspective about the world. Everyone seems to want to be happy, but very few attempts to engage in an academic and intellectual debate and discussion on the philosophical, psychological,

religious, and even cultural foundations of happiness and suffering. In this presentation, I hope to open the discussion among educators, academics, and students on the pedagogical aspects of teaching happiness and suffering as well as the corresponding innovation in teaching (and thinking) that it

requires.

Keywords: happiness studies, learning methodology, innovative pedagogy;

References: 
[1] Darrin McMahon, “Introduction: The Tragedy of Happiness,” in Happiness: A History (Grove Press, 2006).

[2] C. Kingfisher, Happiness: Notes on History, Culture and Governance, Health, Culture and Society (2013).

[3] Anna Wierzbicka, “Happiness in Cross-linguistic & Cross-cultural Perspectives,”Daedalus.