The nation’s best-known headmaster is probably Dr. Anthony Seldon.
A regular voice on Radio 4, he runs Wellington College, is a voluble proponent of the sponsorship of academies by independent schools, and is Tony Blair’s biographer, among other things. He is also at the forefront of a movement to introduce lessons in happiness to school pupils. Ridicule has been a common response, but often from a shallow understanding of the intentions and philosophy which drives education in well-being. This is a serious and, in many ways, laudable attempt to grapple with some of the besetting ills of our society. There is much to admire, but also a great deal to challenge, and above all an opportunity for biblically orthodox Christians involved in education.
Economics of happiness
Economists have long recognised that crude measures of average income are inadequate as an index of development, and the ‘economics of happiness’, in some form or other, has become part of the calculus by which political decisions are made. In this country, very obviously, statistics reveal a mental health crisis, and one that begins in childhood. The numbers of emotionally and behaviourally disturbed children in the UK has doubled since the 1970s, and the main causes of their anxieties will come as no surprise — looks, possessions, friends (or lack of them) and the ever-increasing load of public examinations and the pressures they bring.
