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
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| Nursery nurses and assistants |
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| Launderers, dry cleaners and pressers |
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| Beauticians and related occupations |
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| Educational support assistants |
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| Sports and leisure assistants |
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| Cooks |
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| Elementary sales occupations |
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| Hairdressers and barbers |
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| Other elementary services occupations |
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| Retail cashiers and check-out operators |
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| Kitchen and catering assistants |
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| Market research interviewers |
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| Cleaners and domestics |
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| Waiters and waitresses |
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| Bar staff |
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| Care escorts |
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| Playworkers |
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| School midday and crossing patrol occupations |
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| 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?
