Inspirational English, Issue 43, March/April 2018 Inspirational English, Issue 43,March, April 2018 | Page 9

Hi Erin, would you tell our readers more about the programme "Happiness 101" and how you came up with the idea of creating it? Happiness 101 is a social-emotional learning curriculum that teaches children the habits for well-being. Based on research from the world’s leading gurus on happiness, as well as scientific research on health and vitality and the benefits of meditation, Happiness 101 is a curation of practices (many of which are ancient) that are easy for children to embrace, enabling them to have a solid foundation for well being as they move into adulthood. Happiness 101 started out as an action research project I carried out with my grade three class at Bali International School. I had a wonderful group of children, and some of them were really struggling with learning and on the social front. I was applying everything I knew for struggling learners, and was researching to find new ideas, however, nothing seemed to work! Three of my students had such high anxiety around learning, I knew I had to do something, I just didn’t know what! In my personal life, I had been on a bit of a happiness quest myself, all in an effort to heal from my own childhood 9