Irish teachers have been told that they can help primary and secondary school kids to be content by educating them in happiness.

Writing for the Irish Times, Cian Traynor examines the practice of learned optimism, which stipulates that people can be taught how to be happy.

He looked at American psychologist's Martin Seligman's work, which is slowly making its way throughout the education system in the US and the UK.

There are now 400 primary and secondary school teachers in Ireland who have enrolled on to the Teaching Happiness programme, created in response to his theory.

He states that if teachers can learn how to teach happiness, this will enable them to improve kids' attention spans, memory and help them to solve problems.

Finola D'Arcy, a teacher in County Laois, told the newspaper that she thought the programme should be compulsory for all teachers.

"Children inherently have fabulous hearts. They just need to be given the opportunities to display them," she said.

Seligman has been theorising about learned helplessness and happiness for the last 20 years and has released a number of books on the matter including his best-known work entitled Learned Optimism: How To Change Your Mind and Your Life.

Written by Donal Walsh 

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