ABSTRACT
It is widely recognized that education must rise to the challenge of both leading change toward a more sustainable future and preparing students to be resilient global citizens. To do so, it must undergo a system-wide makeover (Fullan, 2013), finally breaking free of patterns that were set in the Industrial Age. Rationale for reinventing schools is a topic of discussion in academic papers, conferences, staff rooms, households, and classrooms. Solutions offered include the infusion of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and digital technology. Hopkin’s (2013) exhortation to repurpose education with a vision of well-being for all has the capacity to inclusively capture these diverse global discussions. The integration of well-being and sustainability aligns with the view of sustainable happiness defined by O’Brien (2010): happiness that contributes to individual, community or global well-being without exploiting other people, the environment, or future generations.
Positive communication and positive education find a natural home in such a vision and stand to be enhanced through a deeper association with sustainable happiness (O’Brien, 2016). This perspective recognizes that individuals do not exist in isolation and that our well-being is intertwined with the well-being of other people and the natural environment. How might such an education vision be accomplished? How would it be transformative? How might positive education and positive communication both enrich, and benefit from, incorporating sustainable happiness? We find answers to these questions in the practice of Living Schools that bring life to education and education to life (O’Brien & Howard, 2016). This chapter introduces sustainable happiness and provides examples of schools that reflect the ethos of Living Schools.
