I’m a little obsessed right now with finding a job for next August. (Is there such a thing as being a little obsessed?) Perhaps it’s because this is the first year I’ve been a member of SEARCH Associates and have had so much access to information about schools around the world. There are so many interesting places to live and work!

But what started out as a breezy, optimistic perusal of jobs in October has narrowed into a surgical examination and cross examination of positions, packages, mission statements, and hiring policies of schools the world over.

During this process I’ve commiserated with several of my fellow job-seeking colleagues and the same questions keep coming up: Are you hearing anything from schools? Does it seem more competitive this year? If XYZ school is not hiring me, or her or him, who are they hiring?

As international teaching gains popularity and as more international schools open around the world, the recruiting process is getting increasingly intense for both administrators and teachers. Schools are flooded with hundreds of applications for a single posting and must find ways of vetting the most qualified candidates. And while teachers may not be applying for hundreds of positions, they too are busy navigating each school’s application process as well as preparing to attend job fairs, and this is incredibly time consuming as well.

To help us all understand the vast, developing system that is international recruiting, I asked Michael Williams, Vice President of SEARCH Associates, a few question that many of us are asking; specifically, why do schools seem to be communicating less with potential candidates this year?

According to Williams, it’s important for teachers to keep in mind that each Head of School has his or her own style and system for recruiting. Some respond with automated emails, some with a personal response from their HR department, and some only reply to shortlisted candidates. In short, there is no one system that each school follows, so not hearing back is not out of the ordinary. Many schools don’t even post their openings until right before job fairs in January.

And yes, international teaching is getting more competitive. As Williams suggests, “international teaching is getting more competitive, simply because so many have been put out of work on domestic fronts, and many are flooding toward international schools as another option.  This has brought more candidates into the pool for schools to consider.  Luckily, at the same time, international schools are growing in number.  But, because of a robust candidate pool, schools can afford to be picky, and have proven that they will be.”

So, as teachers, what can we do to improve our chances of getting hired?

Be flexible about where in the world you’re willing to teach, but be firm in what kinds of schools are aligned with your own values. How do you feel about working in large, for profit schools? Are you enthusiastic to help develop a school that has just opened its doors? How do you fare in challenging situations and climates? (Be honest about this one.) What schools, administrators, student communities, and cultures are most inspiring to you? I suggest figuring out the answers to these questions (with some flexibility, of course) and then narrowing down your search to schools that are aligned with your assessment of how you can best thrive as a teacher.

And if you’re still left wondering why you’re not getting hired at your preferred schools, be bold! Reach out and ask an administrator at a school you’d love to work at what their ideal candidate looks like. Some schools already have an ideal candidate profile on their website which makes it even easier to tailor your goals. It could be that there are ways you can develop yourself in the next few years with credentials, extra-curricular commitments, or subject training, to strengthen your candidacy so that next time you’re searching for a job, you’ll be a more desirable candidate.

Yes, international teaching has never been more competitive and recruiting season more stressful; but from my perspective, this makes it even more important to understand and articulate your values as a teacher and what you’re seeking in a school environment so you can pursue positions in which you know you can flourish.

Good luck!

In my last post I asked the question, should we be teaching kids how to be happy? Thank you to those of you who wrote in to share your thoughtful comments and resources. To examine the subject further, this month I interviewed my friend and former colleague, Erin Threlfall, who is the founder of Happiness 101, a social and emotional curriculum that seeks to teach kids the habits they need to develop into happy adults. Here’s what she says about how and why we can teach the habits of happiness.

Tell us about Happiness 101. How did it start and how does it work?

Happiness 101 is a social/emotional learning curriculum that teaches children the habits for well being. Based on research from the world’s leading gurus on happiness, as well as scientific research on health and vitality and the benefits of meditation, Happiness 101 is a curation of practices (many of which are ancient) that are easy for children to embrace, enabling them to have a solid foundation for well being as they move into adulthood.

Often in life, we don’t seek out habits for well being (happiness) until we are experiencing a crisis, a loss of some kind, divorce, sickness, discontentment with life choices, etc. Rather than waiting until we are “broken adults,” I believe that we can empower children, at an early age, with the tools that they need to be happy, resilient, healthy adults who are poised to make a positive difference in the world. This isn’t to say that they won’t experience sadness, but with the knowledge of Happiness Habits, they will be more resilient and better able to deal with those moments of crisis. My students like to think of the program as their “happiness tool box,” filed with strategies to help them lead the most meaningful, happiest life possible.

Happiness 101 started out as an action research project I carried out with my grade 3 class at Bali International School. My students and I asked the question: What happens when we teach children the habits for happiness?  At the time, I focused on 5 basic habits: Exercise (we used Yoga), Meditation, Expressing Gratitude, Reflecting on Happy Memories, and Practicing Random Acts of Kindness. Over the years, my students have helped me to expand the habits, (they’ve even renamed some!) and have shaped the lessons so that they are most effective. We saw that Happiness 101 was a perfect tie-in with the IB Learner’s Profile, and the habits actually helped us to deeply embody the attitudes. Happiness 101 now has six key pillars: Build Into Relationships, Express Gratitude, Reflect on Happy Memories, Practice Mindfulness, Spread Kindness, and Take Care of Our Bodies.

Happiness 101 came with me when I moved to the United Nations International School in New York. My students here have fully embraced the program, and I have had fabulous feedback from both the students and their parents. Other teachers in lower grades have picked up the habits as well and are seeing positive results with their learners.

I consider myself the curator and chief promoter in this project, which has taken shape with the help of Jackie Rendina, a teacher at the Canadian International School of Hong Kong; Carl Massy, a life coach and Happiness strategist who founded the World’s Biggest Gym; The David Lynch Foundation, the leading organization promoting Transcendental Meditation, and about 200 students who have made significant contributions to the Happiness 101.  (Just to name a few of the inspiration sources!)

 What age group is Happiness 101 for? How can high school teachers effectively use your strategies with skeptical teenagers?

 The program is great for children of all ages, as the habits can be modified to be developmentally appropriate. Because I am a grade 3 teacher, this is the age group with whom I have done the most work, but I also have teachers in grades K-6 who are putting elements of the program into practice.

High school teachers won’t have to prod the children- the high school students have been incredibly receptive when I give workshops to this age group. Ideally, we would target students before they get to the challenging middle school and high school years, and then just continue to build upon and reinforce the habits.

Why do kids need to learn the habits of happiness?

Research conducted in the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Korea, and through UNICEF reveals that debilitating depression amongst children is rapidly increasing. Drug abuse, self-mutilation, eating disorders, and suicide amongst youth are increasing at alarmingly high rates, and are happening earlier and earlier. This seems shocking for most of us, as we believe children are inherently happy, but data is telling us otherwise.

I begin Happiness 101 with a class survey to assess the student’s well being, and their perception of their own happiness.  On average, a third of the students who take the survey reveal that they are not happy. They site high pressure to succeed, stressful schedules, bullying at school, and difficulties in their home lives as the main causes for their unhappiness.

With this knowledge in front of us, I would say that it is incredibly important that we intervene early to help change these statistics. I have seen that children who practice the habits show increased self confidence, greater connection to community, and higher success rates in school as a result- it’s a win-win!

Many critics say our obsession with happiness is a concern of privileged developed countries; what do you say? 

I’ve wondered a lot about this as well, but through my work within developing countries, I know that we all want to be happy. Many of the habits within Happiness 101 are already embedded in the cultural practices of countries in South America, Africa and Asia, which is why I believe that many of these children could teach those of us in “first world countries” a thing or two about happiness! I know I learned the most about this topic when I was living and working on a refugee camp in Ghana. So maybe it is true- maybe happiness is a first world concern because we have gotten so lost along the way.

Either way, the UN acknowledged the importance of happiness and well being as “universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world.” In July 2011, the UN General Assembly invited countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to guide public policy. The UN has also declared March 20 as “International Day of Happiness.”

I can’t help but wonder what would happen if schools measured the happiness of their community and used the results to guide school policies. I can say that my classroom environment has shifted dramatically since taking on the practices. If we teach children about happiness at a young age, I dare to believe that they could go on to create happier societies as adults.

What I love most about Happiness 101 is that the program does not promote coddling children or praise where praise is not due. Instead we look at ways to empower children to deal with life’s upsets, establish resilience, and take responsibility for their own happiness while recognizing the part they play in creating a happier community.

Where can we learn more about Happiness 101? 

To learn more, people can like the Facebook page: Happiness 101, Teaching our Children the Habits for Happiness. There, I post strategies and updates.  I am in the process now of creating a website, student workbook and teacher guide, and am also available for workshops.  My TEDx talk also tells more about the program.

Thanks, Erin!

Teachers, I’d love to hear from you. Are you using similar strategies in your classroom?

This post is the first in a series exploring happiness and mindfulness in the classroom.

One of the most powerful educators I’ve ever experienced was my Critical Theory professor in university. He was a gifted thinker and orator, and he didn’t give a damn about making us happy. On the first day of class, he told a group of 40 fresh-faced students that only one of us would earn an A by the end of the year. One A! The following class went from 40 students down to 30.

After his brutal and heavily weighted mid-term essay on Plato and Aristotle in October, (for which most of us received D’s,) the class size shrunk even further. The professor wasn’t concerned at all. In fact, he seemed pleased: his class had been vetted down to a small group of curious D-range students who stayed despite the risk of failure. Now we could get down to work.

Teaching for happiness wasn’t part of his objective—just the opposite. He crafted his lectures and assignments to make us all quite uncomfortable, to provoke intellectual and emotional reactions, and to force us to think and write at the edge of our capacity. His class was so intellectually challenging and his grading so discerning that we had to forfeit our attachment to getting high grades and allow our passion for the content to motivate us. After a full year of the hardest writing and thinking I’ve ever done, my capacity for discomfort greatly expanded, and so did my ability. What a gift.

But that was university in a very different time. As a high school teacher in the private system, teaching for happiness is often an implicit expectation from students and the phrase, “I’m not happy with my grade,” is one I hear regularly. I would love this phrase to be the beginning of a reflective conversation about how the student could improve, but most often, “I’m not happy with my grade,” really means, “when can you change it?”

Perhaps what needs to change is the expectation on the part of the student that happiness is a relevant emotion to education at all. Then again, I often take comfort in my favourite fuzzy teaching quotation when I’m feeling discouraged about whether or not what I’m teaching is really sticking. It goes something like this: Students may not remember the content of your class, but they’ll remember how you made them feel. Inspired, challenged, frustrated, humbled…happy? Hm.

So what role do happiness and being happy play in education? As a science and an art, happiness has been examined for thousands of years, but happiness as a more conscious practice and buzzword has gained popularity in the west with the success of books like The Happiness Project, among many others, scholarly, philosophical and New Agey. So it’s not surprising that the concept of happiness is appearing more and more in the realm of education and curriculum.

But happiness is a very complex experience to teach and learn, and the question of whether or not it’s even possible to teach happiness is controversial, don’t you think? Back in 2008 The Guardian ran part of a debate between two educators, Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, and Frank Furedi, sociology professor at the University of Kent. The question put to them was simple: can we teach people to be happy?

Seldon says yes–we can and we should, as educators, teach children how to be happy, and he suggests three main reasons: “First, if schools do not [teach happiness], children may never learn elsewhere. Second, depression, self-harming and anxiety among students are reaching epidemic proportions. So are drinking and drug-taking. Teaching schoolchildren how to live autonomous lives increases the chances of avoiding depression, mental illness and dependency when they are older. And third, since the development of the positive psychology movement under Martin Seligman and developments in neuroscience, we now know how to teach wellbeing, and have empirical evidence of its effectiveness.”

Furedi disagrees, calling programs focused on improving wellbeing “silly,” suggesting they encourage children to be inward focused rather than engaged with the outside world. He says, “everyday experience suggests that not everything that has to be learned can be taught. How to feel well is not a suitable subject for teaching. Why? Because genuine happiness is experienced through the interaction of the individual with the challenges thrown up by life. One reason why well-meaning educators cannot teach their pupils to be happy is because feelings are contingent on encounters and relationships.”

Click here to read the full discussion; both educators make compelling arguments.

For me, I think the question of teaching happiness is too subjective and complex to answer definitively. My Critical Theory professor did not teach to make me happy, and yet the transformation I experienced in his class 12 years ago is still in my cells. It still has power for me. When I saw my final grade was an A, I did feel a kind of thrill, but it was weightless and fleeting in comparison to all the heavy work we did that year, the value of which I feel every time I get a new class of students and tell them, as I was told, to release their expectations for high grades and seek instead to increase their capacity for thinking and writing, and ultimately, disappointment. Because this is what builds resiliency, and nothing makes me happier than that.

I’m curious to know what you think: where does happiness fit in to what you teach? Should we be teaching students how to be happy? If so, where do we start?

It’s mid-June and we’re down to the last week and half of school. Exams have started, teachers are getting ready to leave for the summer, and many are getting ready to move on entirely. We’re at that point in the cycle of the international teacher where we start to reflect on what the last few years have meant and what kinds of changes we’ll make when we start over again.

Next time, I’ll be more organized from the start; I’ll ask more questions; I’ll have more plants in my room and keep them alive; I’ll be more confident and worry less; I’ll go to more parties; be more social–next time.

It’s the cyclical life that makes international teaching so promising, so unique, and so experientially rich. It’s also what makes it so confrontational. Here’s what I mean: the international teacher has nine lives (maybe more) and each time we start a new life we’re invited to live a better life, to be better. For many of us, this means changing our habits, aspects of our practice, and perhaps aspects of our personalities. Otherwise, what’s the point–if we’re not willing to listen and learn and grow and change? The international life then, takes a lot of courage.

It takes courage to choose a path full of challenges, to be an outsider, to open up; it takes courage to be uncomfortable, to see our privileged upbringing from another’s eyes. It takes courage to attach ourselves to a community, even though we’ll leave it one day, and to detach ourselves from stuff, because we can’t take it with us. And it takes courage to work with the same types of people that trigger the qualities we like least in ourselves, and courage still to recognize that we are those people for others. It takes courage to choose a life that, despite its gifts, confronts us with what we want most, need most, fear most; and in the end, it takes courage to say goodbye–just goodbye–not see you soon, or be in touch, or I’ll come visit, because that’s probably not true.  It took courage to leave our homes in the first place, and it will take the most courage, if the time ever comes, to go back.

So the international life is not easy, not entirely. It may afford us with a kind of luxury and adventure that we could never have back home, but we pay out, emotionally, at the end of each cycle when we begin negotiating with everything we own. We pay out in those last few weeks of panic, frustration, bitterness, laughter, sadness, gratitude. We pay out when we say goodbye.

And then the cycle begins again and we start a new life, shrinking our belongings down to a seed that we can put in our pockets and plant somewhere new.