lunes, 8 de diciembre de 2014

The HAPPINESS projects:What makes you "(un)happy" is INSIDE YOU.

People usually lie about themselves when they pretend to be happy or show off how happily married they are and then, the following day, they are" happily" divorced...
Teachers, in general, do not take into account our students´happiness and "FLOW"...
I have devised this thematic unit on Happiness as it is a crucially neglected aspect in our education..
Students should learn how to enjoy life and get some genuine and meaningful satisfaction from it.
According to Alfred de Mussett "that terrible word happiness" might be related to hap, chance...it´s so elusive, like trying to get the best of both worlds.


a) DEFINITIONS:  Ask your students to define what happiness is. (If they quote from an author they must mention his/her name.)

Happiness is................

                                  Not a destination but a way of life

                                  Seeing your loved ones happy

                                 A laughing toddler

                                Champagne on a special occasion

                                The sound of your voice

                                 Chocolates in bed

                                 A long drive with you in the rain

                                A warm puppy

                                To love and be loved( George Sand)

                                Giving  and serving  others    

                                The best daughter of the best god at Olympus (M.R.F.)

                                When what  you think, what you say and what you do               are                 in               HARMONY (M. Gandhi)


b) HAPPINESS from A to Z:

Complete with your own ideas: ACCEPTANCE; ADMIRATION;AFFINITY

                                                        BLESSING; BLISS

                                                        CHEERFULNESS



c) I FEEL HAPPY WHEN...........

                                                        I´m with my family and friends

                                                       I play sports

                                                       I do what makes me feel fine

                                                       I spend quality time with my friends

                                                       I am with my boy/girl friend

                                                      I get inked/ tattoed

                                                     I clock out at work after a long day

                                                    I train and the feeling after a successful workout 

                                                   I´m in good health

                                                  I wake up to a sunny day

                                                  I watch reality TV shows

                                                  I buy new things at a mall..

                                                  I sing songs 

                                                 I sleep soundly and dream beautiful dreams

I FEEL HAPPY IF..........

.I AM HAPPY ABOUT...............

d) HAPPY SONGS:

Listen and explain what the following songs state about happiness:

Happy  Pharrell Williams

Don´t worry, be happy Bobby Mac Ferrin

Happiness is a warm gun The Beatles 

Feeling groovy Simon & Garfunkel

There must be an angel playing with my heart Eurythmics

Always look on the bright side of life Monty Python


e) SYMBOLS of HAPPINESS. :

Mr. Happy is a smiling face and happiness has been depicted as a blue bird. 

How would you create a  new symbol of happiness?


f) Happiness metaphors:

HAPPINESS IS LIKE...........A kiss (You must share it to enjoy it) Bernard Meltzer

                                                A chance encounter and at every moment

                                               presents itself to you like a beggar by the roadside.

                                              A. Gide

                                             Bubbles in wine held up against the sun.

                                            Ben Ames Williams

                                            A child with expectations of a birthday party

                                            Frank Swinnerton

                                           A cloud of morning dew in a dell of wild flowers

                                          Walter de la Mare

                                           A sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts

                                            Chinese proverb

                                          Time and Space: we make and measure it orselves

                                          George du Maurier

                                           Manna; it is to be gathered in grains and                                    enjoyed                  every         day. It will not keep;

                                           It cannot be accumulated      Tryon Edwards

                                          Air , you cannot put it in a bottle(Anon)

 

g) HAPPY ANIMAL SIMILES: Create your own similes according to your own experience:

As happy as .........a dog with a bone

                                a clam at high water

                                a butterfly in a garden full of sunshine and flowers(L.M.Alcott)

                                a pig in a clover/ shit.

                                a robin, when he trills

                               a swallow

                               a partridge

                               a tick in a dog´s ear

                               a kid holding his first puppy

 

h) HOW HAPPY ARE YOU? A QUESTIONNAIRE:

 

1. When was the last time you had a really good laugh?

2. What´s your idea of a great night out?

3.What do you think about when you are alone?

4. If you could live your life again,who would you like to be?

5.What do you consider to be the most important?a) money b) friends c) principles

6. How do you feel if someone is looking at you?

7. When are you happiest?

8. How many really good friends do you have?

9.What is your attitude to children and pets?

10. What do you expect to happen in the next 12 months? 

(Adapted from English experience, Folkestone Kent)


i) Proverbs on happiness. Find out the folk wisdom as expressed in proverbs from different cultures as below:

Looking for happiness is like clutching the shadow or chasing the wind 

(Japanese proverb)

Happiness is like a butterfly the more you chase it the more it eludes you (H.D. Thoreau)

Love , health and wealth (Spanish proverb)

Call no man happy until he is dead( Greek proverb)

 

 

j) Find STEPS TO BECOMING A HAPPIER PERSON in Wikihow and make them relevant to your situation if at all possible.(Trying to be happier is like trying to be taller) David Lykken


k) Your Happiness Quotient. Download any of the many questionnaires on the net to find out not your I.Q. but your H.Q. (Happiness Quotient). Gratification and Achievement seem to be crucial aspects.


l)The MYTHS of Happiness we need to stop believing: Find at least three more myths:

1.I´ll be happy when I´m married to the right person.

2. I need a partner to be happy.

3.I can´t be happy when my relationship has failed again.

4.Landing my dream job will make me happy.

5. The best years of my life are over.

6.I´ll be happy when I´m rich.


m) Define the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence of the USA as a basic human right.

Hobbes described human life in the state of nature as "nasty, brutish and short" 

Do you have more good things than bad  things happening to you?


n)Hello Happiness: Inspirations to brighten up your life/day/night.

Write about the key to happiness, true happiness,love,gratitude,etc..


o)Create your own H A P P I N E S S acrostic:

as in HEAVEN:

Happiness

Eternity

Abundance

Vision

Ease

Now

Something similar to this:

HEALTH

ACCEPTANCE

PERFECTION

PEOPLE

INTERACTION / IMPERFECTION INSIDE YOU

NICE / NATURE

ENTHUSIASM / EQUALITY

SOLIDARITY

SMILE

(ideas by M.A.S.)

 

p)The pleasures and enthusiasms which make you happy:

 

Music, books, friendship, walking,good food, art, mysteries,etc...


q)Find Synonyms for happiness and happy in a thesaurus or on the net.:


r)  Happy poems . Learn by heart a four line  poem such as  R L Stevenson´s:

 

The world is so full

of a number of things

I´m sure we should all

be as happy as kings.


Dark brown is the river

Golden is the sand

It flows along for ever

With trees on either hand.

 

s) Your fridge magnet happiness logo. Create your own logo as below: 

It might be that to surrender to HAPPINESS was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

He was unheeded, HAPPY and near to the wild heart of life- J. Joyce Portrait...

I would always rather be HAPPY than dignified- Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre

At any rate, that is HAPPINESS; to be dissolved into something complete and great.- Willa Cather My Antonia

"Money gives me pleasure all the time" H. Belloc

" Better to be a rich man´s mistress than a rich man´s wife" The Scarletts

"It is spiritual snobbery to think you can be happy without money" A. Camus

"I don´t care too much for money" Paul Mc Cartney(a multimillionaire)

"What happiness? "John Milton 

" Every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness" R.W. Emerson

 

 

t) Happiness and work. Which of these jobs would you ideally like?:

 

Judge

Dentist

Pilot

Stockbroker

Air traffic controller

Barrister

Company Director C.E.O.

Doctor/ Surgeon

Engineer

Architect

Optician

Vet

Economist

Insurance broker

Manager

School teacher

Army major

Fireman

Nurse

Librarian

Sales Representative

Designer

Accountant 

Baker

Photographer

Electrician

Policeman

Plumber

Shop manager

Social worker

Waiter

Caretaker

Laboratory assistant

Secretarial jobs

Postman

Clergyman

  Shelf filler



Nursery nurses and assistants



Launderers, dry cleaners and pressers



Beauticians and related occupations



Educational support assistants



Sports and leisure assistants



Cooks



Fitness instructors



Elementary sales occupations



Sales and retail assistants








Hairdressers and barbers



Other elementary services occupations



Retail cashiers and check-out operators



Kitchen and catering assistants



Market research interviewers



Cleaners and domestics



Waiters and waitresses



Bar staff



Care escorts



Playworkers



School midday and crossing patrol occupations


                               INFO TAKEN FROM The Daily Mail)

Unskilled manual jobs

Farmer 

Cleaners

Housewife

 

u) In order to compare and fully understand your present day situation, 

 PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES of..................................................

A GIRL from NIGERIA

A BOY from BOLIVIA

A "menino da rua" from BRASIL 

A PALESTINIAN who has lost his/her family

A BOY / GIRL with a learning disability

A BOY/GIRL with a strange genetic disorder

( any other  real life characters you may wish to mention) 


v) THE HAPPY PERSON.-

(Not much good literature has been written about happy people.Literature thrives on tragic, bitter,misfit,unhappy characters) So, now we are to describe the "happy person":

They are cheerful and full of delightful stories.They offer good advice to everyone, being lifelong advocates of optimism. They are not afraid of anything. They lead fulfilled and meaningful sex lives. They have no financial worries and so they keep telling everyone that "money isn´t everything".

Naturally, the happy person is as healthy as an ox and can boast a ready smile on a pink, rounded face. They are all for Positive Thinking and natural living.

As the cliche goes:and they lived happily ever after.  But we have to discover the lurking unhappiness in the "happy" person.

 

Adapted from The Art of Creative Writing by Lajos Egri


w) You'll find happiness between "happen" and "hara kiri" in an English dictionary. But what do the following ten expressions mean in English?:

HAPPY HOUR
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
THE HAPPY MEDIUM
A HAPPY EXPRESSION
HAPPY ARABIA
A HAPPY COINCIDENCE
A HAPPY REPLY
A HAPPY DAY FOR THE COMPANY
HAPPY HUNTING GROUND
HAPPY EVENT

x) Read the following texts and write a summary of their main ideas:

A) Happiness cannot be pursued. You do not find happiness;happiness finds you. It is not an end in itself, but a by-product of other activities, often arriving when it is least expected. You can be sitting in the best restaurant, wearing the finest clothes, surrounded by the most dazzling company, safe in the knowledge all your bills are paid, and you may still not be happy. And you can be standing at the kitchen sink, hands in washing-up water, with nowhere to go, and suddenly realize that you feel as happy as you´ve ever felt in your life. What Connolly calls Angst are the small, incremental uncertainties about our place in the scheme of things, the nagging sense that life could somehow be better, if only, if only...what?
It is the restlessness of self. And yet the very word-happiness-suggests sometghing ephemeral, caught on the wing, no sooner ensnared than it slips from our grasp.
To try to make happiness our property, to own it, is to lose it. So what,then, is permanent?
From The Spiritual Tourist by Mick Brown

 B) It is in the nature of things that those who are incapable of happiness should have no idea of it. Happiness is not for wild animals who can only oscillate between apathy and passion. 
To be happy , even to conceive happiness, you must be reasonable... You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passions and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy you must be wise. This happiness is sometimes found instinctively, and the rudest fanatic can hardly fail to see how lovely it is; but sometimes it comes from having learned something by experience.....and involves some chastening and renunciation; but it is not less sweet for having this touch of holiness about it, and the spirit of it is healthy and beneficent.

From George Santayana , Spanish American poet and philosopher, born 1863


y) Happiness in other cultures: 
The Greek word for happiness was "eudaimonia"(literally good demon). They also used "eutuquia", which means good hazard, good fortune, connected with "hap".
The Latin term "felicitas"covers more or less the different aspects of happiness.

What is the connection between happiness and a famous cartoon character?
Why,do you think ,"fellatio", "felon", "felony", "felonious" have the same root as happiness?  
Why is "demon"  meaning divinity related to the Greek concept of happiness?

In Buddhism, what is "nirvana"?          
 Define: Ecstasy
               Euphoria
               Elation
               Exhilaration 
               Joy 


z)HAPPY FAMILIES:
Happy Families is a traditional card game played in the UK, usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on occupation types. The object of the game is to collect complete families.

We are to write a composition on your ideal family. Invent the names of the different members, their jobs, ages and their ideal happy environment.
What would the happy town or city look like?