Tag Archives: school community

Schools as sites of happiness

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Source: Image by trilemedia via pixabay

When we reflect on happiness, we often think about big feelings like joy and excitement, quieter emotions like optimism and hope, or satisfying experiences. Social media feeds are full of apparent evidence that our lives can be a series of easy, enjoyable moments and positive emotions.

In the pursuit of what we deem to be ‘happiness’, we might focus on feeling good rather than on a deeper sense of contentment and fulfilment. We may avoid conflict because it requires us to face discomfort. Yet it is often through disagreement that we reach better decisions and more effective outcomes. We may look forward to vacations because being on holiday lends itself to feeling relaxed and unburdened by daily pressures. Yet it is often from coping with challenges, overcoming adversity, or moving through difficulty that we feel most proud. We felt nervous about doing something, but we did it anyway. We experienced setbacks, but we persisted. Our capacity to achieve something was questioned, but we prevailed. We worried about how it would go, but we grew from the experience.

Beyond feeling happy and seeking pleasure is an Aristotelian concept called ‘eudaimonia’ – the sense of meaning and purpose derived from living a well-lived life of growth, fulfillment and contribution. Focusing on happiness can make us feel less content, whereas focusing on connection and purpose can lead to feelings of happiness. The eudaimoniac notion of living a fulfilled and principled life of service is central to ways in which schools intentionally build communities where the many challenges of childhood and adolescence can be weathered, and through which young people and families can flourish through the complexities and adversities that life inevitably brings.

Last week, the 2025 World Happiness Report was published, ranking Australia 11th after countries such as Finland, Sweden and Mexico. The report unpacks what happiness might mean beyond feeling cheerful and enjoying ourselves. The report points to generosity, connection, kindness and community—or what it calls ‘caring and sharing’—as those things that can buffer us, and our children, from disconnection, loneliness and stress. These findings–including the positive impacts of shared living, shared meals, and social connections–reminded me of my takeaways from my immersion in Yolŋu culture in East Arnhem Land last year, where I experienced a community of relationality, acceptance, reciprocal support, and deep belonging in which members’ identities were enmeshed with people and place.

Communities are glued together by trust, which is built slowly over time. As the Dutch proverb says: ‘trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback’. Schools are fundamentally communities, supporting the holistic development of young people. There is a focus on learning and cognitive development, as well as emotional, physical, social, moral, and spiritual development. Community is not peripheral to learning. Rather, community enables and strengthens students’ capacity to learn, connect and play. Students who feel connected to their school community (who feel accepted, valued, and part of the school) report higher life satisfaction and self-esteem. Schools, at their best, remind us daily of our shared humanity and of who we can be and what we can do, together.

Community is not an idea, but a practice lived daily through micro-interactions of genuine care, open-hearted acceptance, kindness and respect. It is each decision made by each person, in each conversation and each response. In this way, happiness is collective and fostered through shared experiences. It is the connections we make and communities we build that support all of us in moving through the world. Schools are tasked, not just with facilitating learning, but with supporting students to carry kindness, resilience and hope forward into the world as resilient, principled people who make their own positive contribution.

Community in schools are seen and felt every day in the interactions between students, parents and staff. I remember how gratefully students returned to the physical sites of schools after periods of lockdown during the pandemic (as much to see their friends as to learn in classrooms). In a world where much of a young person’s community can be experienced online, and influenced by social media, schools can provide opportunities for fostering resilience, modelling healthy relationships, and developing emotional self-awareness. The findings of the World Happiness Report suggest that schools can be protective ecosystems of happiness-building, where happiness is not about constant positivity or artificial cheerfulness, but about deep and authentic human connection.

The power and privilege of school communities

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Image source: Helen Lopes on unsplash

In schools, every decision comes back to what is in the best interests of the student. The purpose of school might be described as to ensure academic success and secure post-school pathways for young people, or to prepare them for the world beyond school. Much of my career has been in the learning and teaching space, focused on academic results, effective teaching practices, developing learning cultures, and facilitating meaningful opportunities for collaboration and growth. While learning, teaching and academics are core business in schools, the purpose of schools is also to holistically support each student to thrive cognitively, emotionally, physically, socially, morally and spiritually. Further, schools aim to support young people to become good, principled people and savvy, responsible citizens with a keen sense of civic responsibility and the desire to make a positive contribution.

In the coming week I will be presenting at the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI). In one session, I will be reflecting on a book I edited: Future Alternatives for Educational Leadership: Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Democracy. In the conclusion of that book, as I reflected on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote that during the pandemic, “schools have been revealed as socioeconomic enablers and vital points of connectedness, relationality, socialisation, community and socio-emotional-financial support for families” (2022, p.213). That sentiment continues to resonate. As well as being learning communities, schools are additionally communities of being, belonging, becoming, connecting, and buoying.

More than a group of individuals clumped in one environment, community is the act of collectively coming together. A community allows the group to share a sense of purpose and identity, and simultaneously for each individual to embody and explore their own unique purpose and identity. The very word community finds its roots in the Latin communis, meaning ‘shared by all’ or ‘common’. In fact the word munis means to be ready to serve. More than merely sharing a place, this etymology reminds us that community is about what values, experiences and lives we share, and that community is about service. Being intentional about community means deliberately focusing on what connects us rather than what divides us, and on how we can help others. As communities, schools focus on being environments of open dialogue and safe cultures of trust, with shared traditions, shared stories, and support networks that extend beyond classrooms, staff rooms and parent functions.

While students are at the heart of schools and their purpose, school communities include old scholars, families, staff, and wider community. School leaders work in fellowship with their school communities. As a school principal, I am often in the privileged position of sharing in the lives of those in my school community. It is in viscerally human and often private moments, such as when I am with someone who might be experiencing grief or difficulty, that I find myself reflecting on how to act with empathy and compassion while working to do the thing that will most serve and support the person or family in that moment. I focus on presence and service while accepting the discomfort and complexity of our shared humanity.

In my recent conversation with Karen Spiller OAM CF on my podcast, The Edu Salon, Karen expressed the need for principals to feel the hurt of their community, and to also be tough enough to sustain themselves in supporting those in their community through difficult times. There is a need for those leading in, with, and for community to reflect upon how we engage in a way that allows us to keep doing the work. As the sayings go, we need to fit our own oxygen masks before helping others, and we cannot pour from an empty cup. Serving and leading others is only possible when we ourselves are able to be resilient and well.

As communities, schools are people places. Each school offers members of its community more than academic courses, co-curricular opportunities, and wellbeing programs. I often say to students and staff that leading is an action and a way of being, and that leading is about others, not about self. Schools allow opportunities for us to wrap around and walk alongside people through life’s many experiences, in sadness and joy, challenge and achievement, despair and hope. That is an incredible privilege.