Often when discussing a daughter’s education and experiences at school, parents will indicate that their daughter’s happiness is high on their list of priorities. This can create tension when families are determining which path to choose, what goals to set and what success looks like as sometimes happiness and hard work are considered mutually exclusive. The pursuit of happiness has been researched by many including psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who decided to explore “where in everyday life, in our normal experience, do we feel really happy?”. He worked with athletes, musicians, poets, chess players and spiritual advisors to investigate why and how they worked at projects to achieve what he described as “this trance-like altered state of total absorption and effortless concentration or flow”.
What he found was we are all capable of experiencing our own flow when we are fully engaged in our own work, hobbies or relationships or something that makes us happy and creates a sense of satisfaction. Being in a flow state could be achieved when you know that what you need to do is possible, even though difficult, and a sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger. Moments of flow often occur when you are engaged in an activity that you enjoy and in which you are quite skilled.
How do we create an optimal environment to achieve our flow? First, we need to engage in activities that are meaningful to us, that we find challenging and in which we feel we have the skills required to achieve a level of success. Tasks that we have already practised are a good place to start and finding an activity that is challenging yet achievable, like practising a sports drill but with your other hand, choosing to complete the extra mathematics question for homework or presenting a rehearsed speech at assembly. Reading is also a flow activity since it often requires complex skills of imagination and interpretation. There are increasing stages of complexity as you transition from simple story telling, to more complicated prose. Flow happens when a person's skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just manageable, so it acts as a magnet for learning new skills and increasing challenges.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, there are eight factors that accompany the experience of flow. While many of these components may be present, it is not necessary to experience all of them for flow to occur:
- Complete concentration on the task;
- Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
- Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
- The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
- Effortlessness and ease;
- There is a balance between challenge and skills;
- Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
- There is a feeling of control over the task.
The key ingredients for achieving flow include matching your skills to the task while attempting to stretch your skills at the same time, setting clear goals and maintaining intrinsic motivation, avoiding interruptions so you are completely focused (no such thing as multi- tasking) and focusing on the process not the end state.
There are many opportunities for girls to experience flow and happiness at school. So much of what we do is designed to encourage girls to fully engage with the world around them and experience success as well as failure as they challenge themselves, develop their skills and focus on their goals.
To support our girls, staff provide constant guidance and expertise and ensure that the girls understand that a happy life still comprises periods of challenge and endurance along with times of joy and ease.