The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education [Paperback]

Steven Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2003

Suggests that a self-motivated child who is interdependent within a community can develop the full human potential to live a creative and fulfilling life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A clarion call for our culture to re-think what education—and the soul of a child—are really all about" -- Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., educational psychologist, author of Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds

"Such a nobly simple idea, that the true purpose of education should be happiness, and so clearly reasoned." -- Chris Mercogliano, author of Making It Up As We Go Along

This is a splendid book, offering fresh, new insights into a subject exhausted by truisms, pap, and let's pretend. Harrison's hard-biting social critique of the plight that children and education are in should wake us up to our atrocious treatment of our young, that we might actually address their critical needs rather than simply ignoring them as usual. --Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Magical Child, Evolution's End, The Biology of Transcendence, and others

I like this book. I marked several pages to return to and mull over. Harrison's model is radically different from our modern-day lives in general, but much of what he says will ring true for individual homeschooling families. I hope he writes another book where he can spend more time on the solutions now that he has defined the problems with our modern educational model so well. --Home Education Magazine

Addressing concepts of reality, the power of thought, and the dilemma of severance from godhead, this is a book that will make you think, even as its author challenges you to give up that troublesome habit, With a fiercely honest, tell-it-like-it-is style, Harrison challenges the individual to evolve beyond circumscribed forms of relating to that spontaneous place wherein life-and love-burst forth. --NAPRA Review

This small, elegant book is easy to read--should you be in the throes of love's madness, as it were, you still can concentrate on this book! Harrison's prose has a lovely, Zen-like simplicity that supports his powerful message. He offers specific ways to "throw it all out" and start over with your authentic self, tranquil in the calm center of it all, finally at ease with all the paradoxes and contradictions of your all-too-human existence. Give it up. All of it. And all of it will be yours. --New Age Retailer

About the Author

Steven Harrison has studied a wide variety of meditation and spiritual practices and is an international speaker on spirituality and the conscious life. He is a founder of All Together Now International, a charitable organisation that provides aid to street children and the destitute in South Asia, and The Living School, a learning community in Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 131 pages
• Publisher: Sentient Publications; 1 edition (September 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591810000
• ISBN-13: 978-1591810001
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Education > Policy
  • #22 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Parenting & Families > Parenting > School-Age Children
  • #31 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > Philosophy & Social Aspects

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very eye-opening book!, December 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education (Paperback)

This is one of the most radical books I've read on education, because it thoroughly questions the ideas we hold as a society about what education is and what it's good for. As products of traditional education ourselves, most of us tend to just accept the basic tenets of it. Harrison examines the notion that there is a body of information and skills that everyone should learn in school. He asks how useful this approach really is, whether it prepares us adequately for our lives, whether we end up retaining or using much of the information we labor so hard to acquire, and whether it contributes anything to our happiness. In its place, he proposes a very different model for what education can be, which he developed through the process of starting a school. I've observed myself that nearly all the high school and college students I talk to have very little idea of what they want to do with their lives--their education does not help them with this basic question. The model discussed in The Happy Child would do a much better job of helping kids find this out. I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about the state of education in our country.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harrison questions the reason for education, September 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education (Paperback)

Harrison believes that the purpose of education is happiness, not "to get a good job." In The Happy Child, Harrison challenges our beliefs about education, why it exists, and what children really deserve from it. Harrison exposes how schools educate through fear and stamp out children's curiosity and creativity.

This is one of the best books I have read on why we need to change our system of education. It is thought-provoking and should start many heated debates. Harrison asks many questions about our schools, our society, and what is really important.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Offensive but thought provoking, July 5, 2008

By 

A Teacher - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education (Paperback)

All of the derogatory remarks about teachers and the education system in the first half of the book left me feeling a little beat up and misunderstood. I know that our system isn't perfect, however, I hope that his impression of the American classroom is not the norm. After trudging through the first few chapters, I was relieved to find that Harrison shared some interesting ideas. I appreciate some of what he said about testing, however I think his vision for education would require an impossible nationwide utopia filled with parents who make their children top priority (which would be great).
I think he might could have gotten his ideas across more effectively with less of an attack at the beginning. (More flies with honey). He seemed pretty proud that his book is not researched based but maybe he should have visited a few more schools and investigated what good teachers try to do despite the confines of test prep. I also think adults have a more vital role in the guidance and teaching of children than what much of his book seemed to imply.
It made me angry, then it made me think. In the end, it reminded me to make sure to provide activities where students can be more involved in exploring interests, got me thinking about real world learning opportunities and student involvement in the school district. It also made me proud of our kids who lobbied the school board and helped form the district's no tobacco policy and my last art project which allowed students to learn about and create mini-galleries of their favorite artist and art works. I wonder how many schools would actually fit into his stereotype.
I believe that any professional development conference or book is not a waste if you can get at least one good and useful thing from it, however I didn't give many stars because I think the view of today's education presented is skewed and bleak and I think he asks the impossible. Over all, reading this book was a good experience, not because I agree with Mr. Harrison, but because it helped me think out what I believe is true and important about what I have to offer as a teacher and about the system of which I am a part.