Abstract
The intention of this chapter is to explore hope, as a virtue—one of three Christian martyrs, daughters of Sophia (Wisdom)—and as an emotion, and happiness, an especially complex emotion, in relationship to teaching, learning, and school improvement. My desire is to broaden the conversation about teaching and learning to include greater attention to the central but underappreciated place of hope and happiness in all things educational. Being taken for granted, hope and happiness have been dismissed to the sidelines in debates of school of improvement with the result that a great deal of harm has been caused to teachers and to children. Up front it is important to mention that neither hope nor happiness can be made sense of without their opposites, hopelessness, despair, and sadness. In addition, I should mention here the perspective that underlies this chapter is a view consistent with positive psychology, of humans as self-directed and adaptive beings that, when they can, “choose behaviors that make them feel fully alive, competent, and creative” (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000, p. 9).
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Bullough, R.V. (2011). Hope, Happiness, Teaching, and Learning. In: Day, C., Lee, JK. (eds) New Understandings of Teacher's Work. Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education, vol 100. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0545-6_2
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