Educating for Happiness
Education is the formation of the integral man. It involves the formation of the total person, both his material and spiritual nature, to enable him to realize or fulfill the end of his life. This end has been made part of man’s very nature and thus is something that can be known and felt by all. Everyman has a natural inclination for two things. First, he is inclined to search for a being that is greater than him. This refers to man’s tendency to attribute experiences from within and without to a being that is higher and external to him. This is the natural inkling of man of the existence of God. Second, he is inclined towards happiness. There is a natural tendency for man to do or think of something that will satisfy his desires in life. As man searches for his happiness, he soon realizes that there is nothing in this world that could satisfy his longing for it. Thus, he looks for it outside of himself and beyond this life. He looks for it in God. Thus, the two natural inclinations, man’s search for God and man’s search for happiness, are in fact one and the same thing. Happiness is God. God is happiness.
These thoughts come to mind as one reflects on what Aristotle said about education: The aim of education is happiness. Education then will involve the formation of the faculties of man and gear them towards what will make him happy. It involves orienting the intellect and will of man to their proper objects, the truth and the good, respectively. It should then aim at forming the intellect to know the truth and making the will desire the good presented as truth perceived by the intellect. But as education should affect the life of the whole person, it should not stop at knowing the truth and desiring the good. As man’s dignity, which i ...