Can Happiness Be Taught in Times of COVID-19?

“Students need skills that allow them to enjoy a full life, to face their emotions and reality from multiple activities of reflection, analysis, and positive thinking.”

The emotional state of students is a crucial piece of their training process. Our face-to-face and virtual classrooms are living-learning spaces where students prepare to face a new reality and understand the uncertain world that has touched their lives. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and confinement, internet searches related to mental illness symptoms have rebounded significantly (Ayers et al., 2020). Knowing what students think and how they feel is fundamental to providing a successful student experience in and out of the classrooms.

According to a study conducted by the Institute for Disease Modeling in the United States, during the pandemic, anxiety-related internet searches peaked alarmingly on March 28 of this year, rising 54% above all previous years. Questions such as “Am I having a panic attack,” “signs of anxiety,” and “symptoms of an anxiety attack” are the most recurrent combinations of searches, showing public health need challenging to ignore during this health crisis. In general, the study suggests that one in four people between the ages of 18 and 24 have had symptoms of anxiety, stress, or even suicidal thoughts during isolation. According to Benjamin Althouse, the research leader, this is the highest figure ever observed, a sign that people feel anxious, nervous, stressed, and, consequently, unhappy (Rius, 2020).

“Through self-knowledge activities and interaction with the rest of the group, students develop well-being, self-regulation, and systemic thinking skills.”

Positive psychology refers to scientific studies of positive experiences and personal traits, plus the institutions and programs that help improve individuals’ quality of life. These interrelationship function to prevent psychological discomforts and emotional alterations of people from internal or external factors. Both positive psychology and the science of happiness aim to identify human strengths and virtues, thus enabling more open perspectives on human potential, motivations, and abilities (Contreras & Esguerra, 2006).

From the perspectives of positive psychology and the science of happiness, the contemporary world is challenging for most human beings (Blasco, 2020). Technological, political, social, environmental, and health changes have forced generations, such as the Millennials, Generation Z, and the early Alpha generation, to learn to live in a state of constant change. This reality means adapting to a historical and social environment full of uncertainty. Consequently, these young men and women need to develop and acquire emotional skills that equip them to deal with fluid, moving conditions (Deloitte, 2017) (Aparicio, 2016).

The role of universities in the emotional development of students

Universities must expand their course offerings beyond the disciplines. It is not enough to educate future professionals in their disciplines if they do not have the skills to enjoy a full life. Young people come to the classroom looking to acquire theoretical and practical knowledge. However, they also seek answers to questions related to their lives and the socialization processes involved in entering the adult world.

“In my students’ words: emotional well-being is something few institutions pay attention to unless it becomes a problem.”

In response to this situation, Tecnologico de Monterrey (2019) offers General Education training units. These focus on developing social and emotional competencies that supplement university training to provide a more holistic approach. Keys to Happiness for Human Flourishing is a subject that delves into reflection and philosophical analysis, facilitating students to discover a broader view of their lives, environment, and emotions.

Through self-knowledge and interactive activities with the rest of the group, they develop well-being, self-regulation, systemic thinking, relaxation, and positive thinking techniques. This knowledge provides young people with tools to meet the challenges of their stage of life and the uncertain world, in general.

Actions to deal with negative emotions

In the words of my students, “emotional well-being is something few institutions pay attention to unless it becomes a problem.” Some of them perceive the subject Keys of Happiness for Human Flourishing as the best selection they could make at this particular time because it has helped them face the reality of their environments through multiple exercises in the class, including reflection, analysis, and positive thinking.

Below, I share an emotional first aid ‘kit’ that can help students cope with situations such as confinement anxiety, economic difficulties at home, or even the loss of a loved one. With this emotional tool kit, we can balance the emotional state when we have negative thoughts, which are not entirely bad, should be neutralized not to become too profound.

Identify your emotions. Develop the ability to identify when a negative emotion awakens to face it. Ask yourself, how do I feel today?
Build a support network. Structure a support network that can accompany you in difficult times.
Seek advice. Identify someone who can give you good advice in situations of uncertainty.
Balance how you feel. Recognize triggers of positive emotions (such as music, art, some pastime, or place) that help you neutralize negative feelings.
Ask for help. Have at hand information about resources for psychological attention or emotional guidance for situations that we cannot handle personally, such as the institution’s helpline.

It is necessary to remember that to feel good; we must identify and recognize our emotions and the factors that trigger good or discomfort. We should also remember that we are not alone and that there will always be someone who can support us in this process of emotional balancing.

A flexible subject for COVID-19

The subject Keys of Happiness for Human Flourishing is relatively new and is an offering under the Tec21 Educative Model that began its implementation in August 2019. It is profiled as a continually evolving subject that adapts to the environment and is configured as an organic training unit that, although it respects its pedagogical essence, continuously updates its profile to meet its participants’ reality and needs.

The COVID-19 health crisis makes us turn to the development of self-care and personal reflection as fundamental elements of our students’ training. Parallel with p
rofessional development, the training for these competencies occurs in an environment where all educators must understand the roles we play in the new reality and anticipate what the post-COVID world will mean in our lives. Therefore, through the academic spaces, we must respond collaboratively to the need to develop emotional tools to face isolation, working on the sensitivity that individuals must have to coexist socially in new ways.

The flexibility of the courses must be considered when thinking about digital teaching models and coexistence and when conceiving abilities to adapt to the world of uncertain and changing information to which our students are exposed. The university must promote the development of analytical and critical-thinking competencies, which can be configured as useful tools for students to cope with their reality and equip them to handle the decisions they need to make in it.

This article provides an example of what can be done in a training unit. It guides us to appreciate the breadth of possibilities that we have in making each subject an opportunity for our students to reflect on their lives, going beyond just disciplinary training.

About the author

Dr. José Carlos Vázquez Parra holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology, a Master’s in Education, and a Ph.D. in Humanistic Studies. He has more than one hundred publications on ethics, human rationality, and gender studies and is a research professor in the School of Humanities and Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey.

References

Aparicio, P. (2016). La inclusión de las nuevas generaciones en contextos de desigualdad e incertidumbre: Perspectivas educativas y laborales en América Latina y el Caribe. Revista Histedbr On-line, 16(70). doi:https://doi.org/10.20396/rho.v16i70.8649167

Ayers, J., Leas, E., Johnson, D., Poliak, A., Althouse, B., Dredze, M., & Nobles, A. (2020). Internet Searches for Acute Anxiety During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Internal Medicine. DOI:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.3305

Blasco, L. (28 de mayo de 2020). Coronavirus. Entrevista con Laura Rojas-Marcos: “Estamos aprendiendo a gestionar la incertidumbre”. BBC News Mundo. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-52676383

Contreras, F. & Esguerra, G. (2006). Psicología positiva: una nueva perspectiva en psicología. Revista Diversitas. Vol. 2, No. 2.

Deloitte. (Mayo de 2017). Las 6 mayores preocupaciones de los Millennials. Encuesta Millennials 2017: buscando estabilidad y oportunidades en un mundo de incertidumbres. Deloitte. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/es/es/pages/human-capital/articles/6-mayores-preocupaciones-millennials.html

Rius, M. (12 de marzo de 2020). Consejos para lidiar con la incertidumbre personal y laboral que ocasiona la crisis del COVID-19. La Vanguardia. Retrieved from https://www.lavanguardia.com/vivo/psicologia/20200311/474087418640/coronavirus-gestionar-incertidumbre-miedo.html

Tecnológico de Monterrey. (20 de marzo de 2019). Educación general y soporte a la visión. Obtenido de Vicerrectoría Académica y de Innovación Educativa: http://sitios.itesm.mx/va/planes_de_estudio/2_7ES.htm

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.