Happiness is not something that everyone is naturally gifted with but a life skill to be taught and nurtured.

The goal for this class is to give students the tools needed to foster healthy habits, to understand how to deal with negative thoughts, and to debunk the myths that money and more stuff makes for happy people!

In our class time together we will briefly touch upon different tools that can be used to curate happiness in our life followed by creative time to work on projects that foster happiness to share with each other, the studio, and our local community. Our massive project for this class will be to design and build junk art happiness houses. These “happiness houses” will be placed in businesses around Bethel for the Bethel Community Earth Day Passport program. Students will also be working on a large scale model of Bethel as we discuss why communities are so important. We will also create happiness journals and decorate positive affirmation rocks to donate to the town for the celebration event on April 25th. You do not need to attend the event to take this class!

Finally, a class where you can drop off all of the junk you have been wanting to get rid of! Donations are gladly accepted!!!

Student Exhibition date: Jan. 23
Bethel Community Earth Day Celebration: April 25 from 10am-3pm

Please contact us with any questions you may have! New students can enroll at any time. Contact us to register as the class fee will be pro-rated.

Want to know more about why this class is so important?

In 2017, Yale University launched a new course titled, “Psychology and the Good Life” which became such a hit that one in four undergraduate students at the Ivy League university enrolled in the spring semester course. It became the largest class enrollment size in the history of Yale, founded in 1701. Yale launched the course in hopes to give college students necessary tools to combat the depression and anxiety that is currently plaguing college students.

What does this say about our students, our community, and our world? Despite having more material and digital advantages in both their educational and person life, children and young adults today are reportedly less happy/content than any other generation.

We see the problem and want to offer a creative and gentle way to encourage our students to find true happiness while also learning to be kind and compassionate to each other and be active participants in our community.

Read more here:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-happiness/happiness-101-psychology-course-strikes-chord-with-yale-students-idUSKBN1H433K

https://qz.com/1021749/a-leading-happiness-researcher-says-were-giving-our-kids-bad-advice-about-how-to-succeed-in-life/

Ages 10+ • (Create) Happiness: Bethel City Project

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