How schools are turning ‘joy’ into a character strength — and why it’s an awful idea
Back in March I published a post titled, “Now some schools are testing kids for their ‘grit’ and ‘joy’ levels. Really.” For years we’ve heard of schools viewing “grit” as a character strength and moving to measure how much grit students have while attempting to build it up in those deficient. Now one of the co-authors of that post is back with a piece on a similar effort with “joy” — and why this effort to elicit joy in students is not authentic social-emotional learning but instead counterproductive.
This was written by Joan Goodman, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania who has served as a director of the school’s Teach for America program. Goodman is a psychologist who has spent her career combining applied psychology with teaching. She is also an expert in moral education and she studies the practices and moral underpinnings of school discipline and authority in classrooms.
This appeared on the EduShyster blog of Jennifer Berkshire, a freelance journalist and public education advocate who worked for six years editing a newspaper for the American Federation of Teachers in Massachusetts. She gave me permission to republish this piece.
By Joan Goodman
“No excuses” charter schools face a teaching predicament.
Their long school day/year with few diverting extracurricular activities and heavily rule-governed pedagogy is tough on students. Inevitably, strict behavior restrictions, aimed not just at controlling common misbehaviors but also behaviors that might lead to misbehavior, result in a gulf between student desires and teacher demands.
To close the gulf and avoid constantly admonishing students, charter management organizations have layered onto their culture an expectation that learning is to be approached joyously. Indeed, joy has been elevated to a central value at many charter management organizations (CMOs).
The j-factor
Uncommon Schools promotes “joy” as one of its five values; Democracy Prep advertises a “joyous culture” with enthusiasm as one of its DREAM values; Mastery lists “joy and humor” among its nine core values; and Achievement First includes the child’s joy in its assessments of How schools are turning ‘joy’ into a character strength — and why it’s an awful idea - The Washington Post:
