Joy: A Subject Schools Lack Becoming educated should not require giving up pleasure. A) When Jonathan Swift proposed, in 1729, that the people of Ireland eat their children, he insisted it would solve three problems at once: feed the hungry masses, reduce the population during a severe depression, and stimulate the restaurant business. Even as a satire (讽刺), it seems disgusting and shocking in America with its child-centered culture. But actually, the country is closer to his proposal than you might think. B) If you spend much time with educators and policy makers, you'll hear a lot of the following words: "standards," "results," "skills," "self-control," "accountability," and so on. I have visited some of the newer supposedly "effective" schools, where children shout slogans in order to learn self-control or must stand behind their desk when they can't sit still. C) A look at what goes on in most classrooms these days makes it abundantly clear that when people think about education, they are not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right. D) I'm a mother of three, a teacher, and a developmental psychologist. So I've watched a lot of children—talking, playing, arguing, eating, studying, and being young. Here's what I've come to understand. The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. It's their enormous capacity for joy. Think of a 3-year-old lost in the pleasures of finding out what he can and cannot sink in the bathtub, a 5-year-old beside herself with the thrill of putting together strings of nonsensical words with her best friends, or an 11-year-old completely absorbed in a fascinating comic strip. A child's ability to become deeply absorbed in something, and derive intense pleasure from that absorption, is something adults spend the rest of their lives trying to return to. E) A friend told me the following story. One day, when he went to get his 7-year-old son from soccer practice, his kid greeted him with a downcast face and a sad voice. The coach had criticized him for not focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school with his head and shoulders hanging down. He seemed wrapped in sadness. But just before he reached the car door, he suddenly stopped, crouching (蹲伏) down to peer at something on the sidewalk. His face went down lower and lower, and then, with complete joy he called out, "Dad. Come here. This is the strangest bug I've ever seen. It has, like, a million legs. Look at this. It's amazing." He looked up at his father, his features overflowing with energy and delight. "Can't we stay here for just a minute? I want to find out what he does with all those legs. This is the coolest ever." F) The traditional view of such moments is that they constitute a charming but irrelevant byproduct of youth—something to be pushed aside to make room for more important qualities, like perseverance (坚持不懈), obligation, and practicality. Yet moments like this one are just the kind of intense absorption and pleasure adults spend the rest of their lives seeking. Human lives are governed by the desire to experience joy. Becoming educated should not require giving up joy but rather lead to finding joy in new kinds of things: reading novels instead of playing with small figures, conducting experiments instead of sinking cups in the bathtub, and debating serious issues rather than stringing together nonsense words, for example. In some cases, schools should help children find new, more grown-up ways of doing the same things that are constant sources of joy: making art, making friends, making decisions. G) Building on a child's ability to feel joy, rather than pushing it aside, wouldn't be that hard. It would just require a shift in the education world's mindset (思维模式). Instead of trying to get children to work hard, why not focus on getting them to take pleasure in meaningful, productive activity, like making things, working with others, exploring ideas, and solving problems? These focuses are not so different from the things in which they delight. H) Before you brush this argument aside as rubbish, or think of joy as an unaffordable luxury in a nation where there is awful poverty, low academic achievement, and high dropout rates, think again. The more horrible the school circumstances, the more important pleasure is to achieving any educational success. I) Many of the assignments and rules teachers come up with, often because they are pressured by their administrators, treat pleasure and joy as the enemies of competence and responsibility. The assumption is that children shouldn't chat in the classroom because it hinders hard work; instead, they should learn to delay gratification (快乐) so that they can pursue abstract goals, like going to college. J) Not only is this a boring and awful way to treat children, it makes no sense educationally. Decades of research have shown that in order to acquire skills and real knowledge in school, kids need to want to learn. You can force a child to stay in his or her seat, fill out a worksheet, or practice division. But you can't force the child to think carefully, enjoy books, digest complex information, or develop a taste for learning. To make that happen, you have to help the child find pleasure in learning—to see school as a source of joy. K) Adults tend to talk about learning as if it were medicine: unpleasant, but necessary and good for you. Why not instead think of learning as if it were food—something so valuable to humans that they have evolved to experience it as a pleasure? L) Joy should not be trained out of children or left for after-school programs. The more difficult a child's life circumstances, the more important it is for that child to find joy in his or her classroom. "Pleasure" is not a dirty word. And it doesn't run counter to the goals of public education. It is, in fact, the precondition.

When it's five o'clock, people leave their office. The length of the workday, for many workers, is defined by time. They leave when the clock tells them they're done. These days, the time is everywhere: not just on clocks or watches, but on cell-phones and computers. That may be a bad thing, particularly at work. New research shows that clock-based work schedules hinder morale (士气) and creativity. Clock-timers organize their day by blocks of minutes and hours. For example: a meeting from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., research from 10 a.m. to noon, etc. On the other hand, task-timers have a list of things they want to accomplish. They work down the list, each task starts when the previous task is completed. It is said that all of us employ a mix of both these types of planning. What, then, are the effects of thinking about time in these different ways? Does one make us more productive? Better at the tasks at hand? Happier? In experiments conducted by Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier, they had participants organize different activities—from project planning, holiday shopping, to yoga—by time or to-do list to measure how they performed under "clock time" vs "task time." They found clock timers to be more efficient but less happy because they felt little control over their lives. Task timers are happier and more creative, but less productive. They tend to enjoy the moment when something good is happening, and seize opportunities that come up. The researchers argue that task-based organizing tends to be undervalued and under-supported in business culture. Smart companies, they believe, will try to bake more task-based planning into their strategies. This might be a small change to the way we view work and the office, but the researchers argue that it challenges a widespread characteristic of the economy: work organized by clock time. While most people will still probably need, and be, to some extent, clock-timers, task-based timing should be used when performing a job that requires more creativity. It'll make those tasks easier, and the task-doers will be happier.

It's nice to have people of like mind around. Agreeable people boost your confidence and allow you to relax and feel comfortable. Unfortunately, that comfort can hinder the very learning that can expand your company and your career. It's nice to have people agree, but you need conflicting perspectives to dig out the truth. If everyone around you has similar views, your work will suffer from confirmation bias (偏颇). Take a look at your own network. Do your contacts share your point of view on most subjects? If yes, it's time to shake things up. As a leader, it can be challenging to create an environment in which people will freely disagree and argue, but as the saying goes: From confrontation comes brilliance. It's not easy for most people to actively seek conflict. Many spend their lives trying to avoid arguments. There's no need to go out and find people you hate, but you need to do some self-assessment to determine where you have become stale in your thinking. You may need to start by encouraging your current network to help you identify your blind spots. Passionate, energetic debate does not require anger and hard feelings to be effective. But it does require moral strength. Once you have worthy opponents, set some ground rules so everyone understands responsibilities and boundaries. The objective of this debating game is not to win but to get to the truth that will allow you to move faster, farther, and better. Fierce debating can hurt feelings, particularly when strong personalities are involved. Make sure you check in with your opponents so that they are not carrying the emotion of the battles beyond the battlefield. Break the tension with smiles and humor to reinforce the idea that this is friendly discourse and that all are working toward a common goal. Reward all those involved in the debate sufficiently when the goals are reached. Let your sparring partners (拳击陪练) know how much you appreciate their contribution. The more they feel appreciated, the more they'll be willing to get into the ring next time.