Dreamed-of Disciplines
Subjects We Wish Were Taught in School
Imagine a society that, in addition to the traditional academic subjects taught at school and at home, also taught us how to discover who we are, how to eat well, and even how to be happy! Our journey through life would surely be very different. Here are some subjects we would love to see taught in French classrooms* and at the heart of our homes! What if it were possible? What if it all started with us?
* As in every classroom, all over the world !
Emotional Management Class
How many adults are there who don't really understand how their own emotions work? Quite a few, certainly! Teaching children from an early age how to acknowledge, analyze, accept, and manage their emotions would be one of the greatest gifts we could give them. Indeed, this is a skill that serves us throughout our entire lives. It enables us to handle any situation as well as possible, to engage in self-reflection in order to better understand ourselves, and thus guides us toward the path that is right for us.
Positive Attitude Class
Empathy, gratitude, positive thinking… So many tools that could serve us through this kind of class! It would help everyone put things into perspective, accept life as it comes, and be prepared to face whatever difficulties may arise. This could include empathy lessons to help students get along with their classmates, gratitude exercises to encourage appreciation for what they have, or even days dedicated to happiness and optimism, with activities such as exploring positive quotes or discovering existing positive initiatives and media!
Self-Awareness Class
Every student should have the opportunity to benefit from coaching sessions to learn more about themselves. Indeed, this is a crucial age in the development of one's identity, yet paradoxically, it is also a time when young people receive very little guidance. Students are put under pressure to make decisions about their future educational and career paths, but they are rarely encouraged to question who they are as individuals.
Self-awareness classes could therefore guide them and help them discover their particular type of intelligence, their strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately enable them to choose the path that is best suited to them.
Healthy Eating Class
Learning how to nourish ourselves while respecting our bodies and our planet is essential and should be an integral part of school curricula. Indeed, as we live in a rapidly changing society, it is important to teach students about the importance of a healthy diet and the dangers of an unhealthy one. The goal is not to turn them into nutrition experts, but to give everyone the knowledge they need to eat healthily. And it is highly likely that they will continue to benefit from this knowledge for years, even decades, to come.
Zen Attitude Class
It is during our school years that we experience our first major moments of stress, particularly around exams. And we will face stress throughout our lives. So it would be very appropriate to help students, from an early age, find their own ways of managing stress. Sports, relaxation, yoga… Introduce them to all the tools you know and let them choose. At the very least, they will have heard about them thanks to you. For example, teachers who have made a habit of starting their classes with a few minutes of meditation have found that it has a real effect on students' inner calm, and consequently on their concentration and learning in the classroom.
Learning How to Learn
Finally, if there is one thing that would be important to learn at school and at home, it is the ability to continue learning throughout our lives. Learning should not stop when we leave school! Even though school awakens our curiosity and gives us essential foundations in certain subjects, it only lasts for a limited time. Our greatest teacher is simply life. So it would be wonderful if we were taught, both at school and at home, how to find information, absorb and process it, read and write efficiently, use the internet properly… so that we can continue to learn and educate ourselves, more and more, throughout our lives!
Admittedly, school curricula are already quite full, and teachers are obliged to prioritize. But don't all these subjects deserve to be addressed, at least to some extent? Besides, some countries are already doing it! For example, there are empathy classes in Denmark, meditation sessions instead of detention periods in Canada, happiness classes in Germany, and even French universities have introduced personal development courses! Great, isn't it?! Things are changing, and that's a good thing!
And so many more!
Source: Tal Schaller's BLOG Newsletter SANTEGLOBALE.WORLD