It is high time we updated the curriculum to promote wellbeing alongside academic achievement

Schools should teach mindfulness, emotional intelligence and self-care

It’s been a while since I updated this blog of mine. I have been extraordinarily busy writing a dissertation, running the Mindfulness Society at Cambridge and working on a novel, amongst other things. But I always have time to meditate, reflect and take mindful moments. I know these things are essential for my mental health, and taking these small nuggets of time to step outside of myself — away from the thinking and the planning and the busyness of my brain — also makes me far more productive in the long run. There is a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that, on the whole, mindfulness reduces stress and anxiety, helps us lead more authentic lives and improves our overall mental health.

I believe young people, from a fairly early age, should be taught how to access their own set of mindful and emotional tools, so they can draw on them when needed.

We have such a short stretch of time on this planet. How to maintain happiness, wellbeing and a good quality of life during this time should surely be high on the agenda when thinking about the curriculum. Education is such a powerful means of shaping culture, mentalities and perspectives. Yet it seems that little thought goes into how we can utilise the curriculum to benefit people’s inner worlds and mental wellbeing alongside providing them with opportunities to progress in academia and into a career. Schools should prepare our people for life — relationships, friendships, emotional difficulties, communication, even parenting — not just provide a stepping stone to progress to a job or university.

PSHE: ridiculed and insufficient

As it stands, education to promote personal development and wellbeing is sidelined to a dusty and oft-derided corner of the curriculum. PSHE (Personal Social Health and Economic education) is the umbrella in the UK under which all non-academic, non-traditional education is clumped. I remember having just one hour every couple of weeks for PSHE in school, and no one took the lessons seriously. The teachers were not trained adequately, and the classes were unengaging and focused disproportionately on safety: how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and STIs; why we should never, ever try drugs; how terrible car accidents and house fires are.

Obviously, these things are important, but it means there is very little space left at all on the curriculum for things like mindfulness, emotional intelligence and self-care. I also think that when kids are force-fed information about issues such as drug use and sexual health, it does little to discourage them, instead piquing their curiosity.

My blueprint

I have always been surprised that a progressive, ambitious politician hasn’t come along and proposed a radical reworking of the school curriculum. If we change what we teach our youngsters, we will change their mindsets, the way they think and the things they prioritise, creating a whole new generation of mindful individuals. They will pass this on to their children as parents, and bam, we create a new, more compassionate, self growth-oriented culture.

So how do we integrate more personal and emotional development into the curriculum?

The key, I believe, would be to divide the curriculum into two parts: one focused on academic achievement and exams, and one focused on ‘personal development’ (a provisional umbrella term for what I’m talking about). Perhaps a 2:1 ratio would be ideal. Primary education should remain broadly the same, but from the age of eleven or so, young people can start learning how to nourish their bodies and minds, how be present and ultimately, how to be happy. Isn’t that what is most important, alongside securing a job?

We’re always told, money won’t buy you happiness, yet our entire education system is essentially based around providing you with stepping stones to make money.

Quality over quantity

The amount of academic content on the curriculum should certainly be reduced. I believe this would also enable more students to achieve their potential because they won’t be overloaded with too much information. The curriculum should be trimmed down to the parts which have real-life relevance and can either be applied in everyday life or contribute in a significant way to one’s understanding of how the world works. I believe, for example, that much of Mathematics and the Sciences could be cut from the curriculum and it would have no impact on people’s happiness, wellbeing nor even their understanding of the world. If you want to take your study of Maths or Science further, you can, but it should be an option, not a requirement to succeed in the academic and working world.

Similarly, it should still be a requirement to study the core humanity subjects, but they should be given more choice over that study within them. For example, instead of looking at poetry and Shakespeare and ‘An Inspector Calls’ and ‘Pride & Prejudice’, why not just become an expert in one or two? The same goes for period in history, or areas of geography. I believe students will perform better if they narrow their focus and have less to juggle.

The other side of the new curriculum

Now I have justified the view that the education system should promote mental and emotional wellbeing as well as intellectual ability, I will identify exactly what we needs to be added to the curriculum:

1. Mindful meditation: teaching young people why and how meditate is essential. Group meditations are a wonderful way to connect with your peers in a non-conventional way. This might seem radical, but why not? It provides nothing but endless benefits, reducing anxiety, boosting productivity and bettering one’s relationship with him or herself.
2. Mindful communication: essentially, how to talk so others will listen, and how to listen and respond so others will want to communicate with you.
3. Emotions: how to process them; how to express them in a healthy, productive way; how to understand those of others.
4. Relationships, romantic and platonic: how to love; how to sustain healthy, lasting relationships; how to express your own needs and meet those of others; how to spot toxic relationships; how and why you should be kind, compassionate and possibly charitable to others less fortunate than you.
5. Self-care: how to look after and love yourself; why it is important to carve out time to focus on your mind and body’s needs; how to keep a reflective journal (doodles or writing) and why this might be beneficial.
6. Practical skills: alongside learning about themselves, their minds and their emotions, youngsters should also develop a practical skillset. For example, how to manage your finances and fix broken appliances.
7. Getting to know your body: Physical Education twice a week is not enough. Young people should be taught how essential it is to incorporate daily movement into their routines, whether that be in the form of stretching, yoga, running or mindful walks.
8. Parenting: perhaps the most crucial life skill, yet we are given no guidance whatsoever except for the odd book or online article and the example of our parents — who also had no guidance whatsoever, and so on. Young people should be educated on how to teach their children what is right and wrong, how to balance love and discipline, and how to communicate and build trust with a child.

Ultimately, knowing how to love yourself is more important than knowing how to solve a quadratic equation. If students had regular classes in the above areas by trained professionals, they would evolve into much more rounded, mindful and content individuals, ready to grab life by its horns and do great things.