How do we prepare students to not only succeed in their future academic journeys, but to live fulfilling lives? An advanced Upper School elective, The Literature and Science of Happiness, aims to do both. In the course, which is offered to twelfth graders in the fall of their senior year, students both strengthen their skills as analytical thinkers and researchers, and learn science-backed strategies for improving their own well-being. 

The Literature and Science of Happiness is partially inspired by a well-known course at Yale University, as well as similar courses at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania in the field of positive psychology. However, teacher Lyda Ely has given the elective a uniquely-Calhoun twist, integrating literature as a lens through which students examine psychology research and philosophy. “[I ask] students to consider the ways in which our protagonists and authors ponder the same questions as scientists and philosophers – ‘How do we measure happiness?’ and ‘How does one live a truly happy life?’” says Lyda.

Seniors read college-level texts, including scientific papers and philosophical theory by Aristotle, Confucius and Buddha, alongside fiction and nonfiction stories. They study the PERMA model from psychology (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement), and use it as a framework to analyze the texts and dig into big questions about what makes for a satisfying life. “In the stories we read, we seek to find connections between science and lived experience,” explains Lyda. The class’s discussions not only give students practice in close reading and literary analysis, but help surface ideas that apply outside of the English classroom.  

“[I ask] students to consider the ways in which our protagonists and authors ponder the same questions as scientists and philosophers – ‘How do we measure happiness?’ and ‘How does one live a truly happy life?’” Lyda Ely, US English teacher

Students demonstrate what they’ve learned in a variety of research and writing-based assessments. In one project, the seniors are asked to do research on one of four topics – sleep, nutrition, meditation or music – using academic papers and studies to examine what the data says about the potential impacts of this topic on one’s happiness. They then present their findings to their classmates during a “wellness roundtable.” They also do various activities throughout that help them put the science into practice. For example, after talking about the research behind the neurological benefits of gratitude, students write a gratitude letter and read it aloud to the person to whom it’s addressed. For their final assignment, the seniors write a “happiness manifesto,” a paper in which they analyze and synthesize the varied materials they have studied over the course of the mod to determine a recommended path to well-being for others and especially for themselves.

The impacts of the course have been far-reaching, and have even led to some campus-wide initiatives, like a phone-free day in which seniors challenged their peers to disconnect from technology and focus on personal connections. Most of all, the concepts students have gleaned from science, philosophy and literature have inspired deeper self-reflection. Offered at a time when seniors are focused on college applications, the Literature and Science of Happiness invites them to analyze their own values and what they want from their futures. 

Senior Dante Z. ‘23 shares that, “The Literature and Science of Happiness is a class that reframes your understanding of happiness and the goal of life. As humans, we tend to aim for happiness, a temporary, fleeting emotion, through the achievement of things like fame and money. We should instead be aiming for flourishing, a state of well-being characterized by searching for positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. Or, as said in Hector and the Search for Happiness, a film we watched in class, we should not live for the ‘pursuit of happiness’ but the ‘happiness of pursuit.’” 

These are lessons students are sure to take with them beyond their time at Calhoun.