See what people are saying…
“What does it mean to be educated? “Knowing how to be happy” may not be a common response to this question. Yet, happiness is what we all seek in life. Steve Banno, Jr. provides a blueprint for educators and those who work with youth on how to teach the “soft skills” of success in life: happiness and altruism. This book expertly intertwines the science of happiness, educational research, personal experience, and suggested lessons to provide a strong argument for teaching happiness in primary and secondary schools. Banno illustrates a different model for education than the model currently provided by the academic industrial complex. Teaching What Matters helps those of us who have thought, “I wish someone had taught me this earlier,” put words into actions by teaching the next generation the true meaning of success.”
— Aminda J. O’Hare, PhD, Director of Neuroscience and Assistant Professor of Psychological Science, Weber State University
*********
“Steve Banno, Jr. has written a groundbreaking book for educators that will surely transform the lives of their students. In Teaching What Matters he skillfully and comprehensively integrates what we know from Positive Psychology about how to live a happy and meaningful life and translates it into a ready-made course that may be the most impactful course one ever teaches. Through his careful weaving together of evidence-based research with thoughtful activities and reflections that invite students into hands-on experiences, the course laid out in this book inspires the best in students and empowers them to discover for themselves what it means to live an authentic, valued, and meaningful life.”
— Beth Kurland, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of Dancing on the Tightrope: Transcending the Habits of Your Mind and Awakening to Your Fullest Life
*********
“In a world of endless access to infinite data, we need to free teachers to do what they set out to do in the first place-help us raise connected, engaged and healthy children.”
— Seth Godin, author of This is Marketing
********
“There is a lot of heavy lifting in education. One of the biggest challenges is helping students grow into their true potential. Steve has created a practical classroom guide to doing exactly that. This book will help focus on what truly matters enabling students not only to be successful, but to make the world a better place.”
— Gregg Bruno, Principal
*******
About the book:
Teaching What Matters is infused with:
•hundreds of practical lessons that can be integrated into any class and/or curriculum,
•learning objectives,
•overarching reflection and discussion questions,
•summations of emerging research in positive psychology and other academic disciplines,
•assessments,
•and teaching strategies.
Teaching What Matters will provide the agency for teenagers to enhance happiness and kindness in their lives and in the lives of others. These lessons will energize and empower teachers and older teens to learn the important things not usually taught in school. Teaching What Matters invites teachers and teens to enhance their well-being, promote kindness, and compassion for themselves and others.
Teaching What Matters acknowledges the pathos that exists in the world. However, the lessons enjoined in book invite young people to cultivate their altruistic proclivities. Civil Rights icon John Lewis encouraged us to remember that love and a better society can be strengthened when he wrote:
“Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. […] Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. And if you follow your truth down road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
Peak inside…
Each chapter precept provides a playbook of scaffolded lesson ideas, resources, and activities designed to meet the social and emotional needs of older teenagers and young adults.
Chapter 1: An Invitation to Teach What Matters
Chapter 2: Redefining Success
Precept #1: In order to live a successful life, we must figure out what it means to get a life.
Lesson sequence topics: Best possible future self; Hope theory; neuroplasticity; hedonic treadmill; adaptation; PERMA model of human flourishing; Rosenthal Effect; redefining and broadening one’s personal definition of success from societal messages of success.
Precept #2: Money, as a marker of success, buys happiness just not in the ways we think it does.
Lesson sequence topics: The value of money, Easterlin’s Paradox; miswanting; Keeping up with the Joneses Effect; the problem with Veruca Salt’s view on life; Consumerism; Redefining luxury and wealth; thinking about money ethically; hidden ways in which money may lead to greater well-being
Precept #3: Keep it real. Develop an inner integrity to live successfully.
Lesson sequence topics: The problem of perfectionism; the benefits of failure; authenticity and vulnerability; living by our signature strengths not our weaknesses
Precept #4: Creating and committing to meaningful life goals liberate us from the tyranny of passive living.
Lesson sequence topics: The benefits of setting meaningful life goals; WOOP model to achieving life goals; self-determination theory; the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic goals; setting meaningful and purpose goals
Chapter 3: Happiness as an Inside Job. Developing emotional courage, befriending difficult emotions, cultivating positive emotions, optimism and an attitude of gratitude.
Precept #5: To be human is to be emotional, so befriend your emotions.
Lesson sequence topics: What exactly are emotions; developing emotional intelligence and emotional regulation; the role of negative emotions; combatting our negativity bias; befriending difficult emotions and good stress; self-compassion; reframing adversity and post-traumatic growth; how to understand our emotions, name our emotions; differentiate emotions from moods;
Precept #6: Let positivity reign. Cultivate positivity, positive emotions and optimism.
Lesson sequence topics: Optimism, the benefits of looking on the bright side; positivity and the broaden and build theory of positive emotions; what’s good about feeling good; the power of laughter and gratitude; how to challenge catastrophic thinking; how to lean into positive emotions.
Chapter 4: It’s About Time: Giving Some Intention to Our Attention
Precept #7: Maximize aliveness by examining your relationship with time.
Lesson sequence topics: Time poverty vs. time affluence; examining our attitudes about time and well-being; examine our relationship with time; digital technology, social media and time; exploring leisure time
Precept #8: Exploring mindfulness helps to better understand the anatomy of the present and calmness in those moments.
Lesson sequence topics: What mindfulness is and isn’t; the default mode network and idleness; why practice mindfulness; how to integrate mindful minutes into any classroom;
Precept #9: Savor more and improve your relationship with time.
Lesson sequence topics: How to savor more; why savor?;
Precept #10: Redefine your relationship with time by rediscovering playfulness and flow.
Lesson sequence topics: Understanding the importance of flow: the theory of optimal experience; how to generate macro and micro flow; differentiating between macro flow and junk flow;
Chapter 5: The Heart of Altruism: Compassion, Human Goodness, and Helping Others.
Precept #11: The world is not broken. There is another side to human nature. One that is constructive, benevolent, and good.
Lesson sequence topics: Mean world syndrome; negative primals; what is morality; who or what is part of one’s universe of obligation; the tragedy of the commons is the tragedy of misunderstanding; the differences between selfishness and self-interest; introduction to the Bystander Effect; understanding the inverse bystander effect; putting one’s beliefs into practice
Precept #12: Heroism is always accessible and able to be chosen. We are all heroes in waiting.
Lesson sequence topics: Heroism and recognized altruism; what motivates people to act heroically; introduction to recognized altruists and rescuers during the Holocaust; communities that arise in disaster;
Precept #13: In search of the antecedents of human goodness altruism turns up not only in nature but also in the evolutionary history of animals and humans.
Lesson sequence topics: Human nature, Darwin and Survival of the kindest; altruistic origins in primates; altruistic origins in our hominid ancestors; the development of morality and goodness in toddlers and infants;
Precept #14: Human nature is full of goodness, altruism, compassion and kindness.
Lesson sequence topics: Kin-selection theory and altruism; reciprocal altruism theory; how cooperation emerges; game theory and tit for tat; empathy altruism theory; the ugly side of empathy
