Happiness! The Psychology of What Makes Life Worth Living

​All-Gender Course; ​Fall semester or Full-year course
COURSE DESCRIPTION
There’s a lot of pressure on young adults to “discover their passions” and “live lives of purpose.”   Why? Because we want you to be happy and whole, which are states of being that have to be cultivated. Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living (Peterson, 2008), so understanding the traits and actions that lead to well-being and fulfillment are the focus of this class.  Students collaboratively explore the outcomes of behaviors such as learned helplessness and learned optimism so that they can identify practices that build resilience, compassion, and gratitude, and they have opportunities to research nuanced topics in the positive psychology literature and design activities that connect theory to lived experience. 
WHAT STUDENTS SAY

Happiness: The Psychology of What Makes Life Worth Living is a new course for 20/21 school year at One Schoolhouse. To read what students have said about other One Schoolhouse courses, visit our What Students Say webpage!

WHAT STUDENTS DO
Learning is an active process at One Schoolhouse. Students design, create and apply. And, they engage with classmates and connect with their teachers through discussions, video conferences, and projects. Specifically, in this class students will:
  • Set goals that drive their learning. Students reflect regularly on their growth, and meet on video chat with their online teacher to review progress towards their goals.
  • Have choice in how they learn new content and practice new skills. Students are given agency to determine the best ways for them to learn.
  • Apply what they are learning to the real world. Learning is meaningful and connects to concepts outside the classroom.
  • Practice constructive engagement in a diverse and changing world. Students interact with classmates from across the country and around the world.
  • Gain academic maturity. Online learning takes greater discipline and independence than a traditional face-to-face classroom. Teachers support students to build this skill.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SECOND SEMESTER?
Students wishing to pursue a positive psychology project may enroll in the course for the full year.  For students continuing into Semester II, the course shifts into personalized, project-based work, where students engage in deep, sustained inquiry, authentic and iterative research, critical analysis, and rigorous reflection, revision, and assessment as they journey through a self-designed, long-term activism, design or research project on the topic of their choosing.  Guided by a One Schoolhouse teacher, students pursue individual study/self-assessment or collaborative seminar/peer-review. Pathway options from which students choose include:

  • Spring Activism Seminar: In this seminar, students identify a need and create a plan to effect economic, environmental, political, or social change in a target community.  Utilizing a social science approach to research and evaluation, students are guided through the process of planning the deployment of a novel idea and identifying markers of success.  Students may create a strategic plan for a club or non-profit or design an artistic product in this seminar. 
  • Spring Design Seminar:  In this seminar, students design a technological solution to a real-world problem.  Through the engineering design process/scientific method, students gather and analyze data to determine the effectiveness of their model or the accuracy of their hypothesis.  Students may prototype and produce a public product in this seminar. 
  • Spring Research Seminar:  In this seminar, students answer a theoretical or ethical question.  Utilizing the social science/humanities tools for source evaluation, students collect, critique, and evaluate artifacts or primary source documents to explore their thesis.  Students may create a written or multimedia product in this seminar. 

Upon completion of their inquiry-driven project, students will have gained academic maturity and expanded their ability to engage in a diverse and changing world.  They will be able to draw and defend conclusions from theoretical underpinnings, contextual background, and mathematical analysis or source evaluation. Finally, they will have created and tested something useful of their own design or will be able to defend a position based on their own research. Check out the video below to hear from the facilitators and learn more about your seminar project!
COURSE APPROVAL
One Schoolhouse is fully accredited with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges through December 1, 2025; we are an approved online publisher for the University of California. 
Rebecca Plona
Social Sciences Teacher
AB Middlebury College 
MEd Boston University
MA Vermont College