WELLBEING
purely for the benefit that it brings to listeners. In one
student case study, their reflection suggested they felt
good because they have acted altruistically and that is as
far as their thinking on the subject needs to go. Despite
the ostensible altruism of the action, the experience
generates a wellbeing payoff for the student that is self-
gratifying.
Students sometimes experienced complex and dissonant
feelings when attempting to reflect on the value of the
activity. One student wrote with ironic detachment; “I
seldom think about the impact I have made on their
lives or about how compassionate I am, as feeding my
ego with how much of a good person I am, takes the
selflessness out of selflessness”.
Again what is paramount in this example is a sense that
virtue is a given and that thinking about it might even
undermine the value inherent within the action. The
frame of reference for evaluation is the self, and if there
is any wellbeing benefit to be derived, it is certainly
hedonic.
Despite their assumptions of virtue based on their
altruism, there is a lack of evidence for eudaimonic
wellbeing in the students’ reflections. This does not
necessarily mean there is none, various factors may
be limiting their engagement. Levels of emotional
maturity and feelings of embarrassment when talking
about emotions, for example, could be further inhibiting
influences on the students when reflecting on their
experience.
To look further at students’ motivation and priorities, we
can examine the experience of a Year 11 student who
dropped out of the activity because she was suffering
from anxiety about her GCSE exams which were still six
weeks away.
The student was highly motivated by academic
achievement and her expectations of success were
contributing to her anxiety. She felt overloaded with
work and needed to reduce her activities to give herself
time to rest. In consultation with her parents and her
pastoral tutor she decided that her VSU activity could
be missed because it was less important to her than
academic work. The student felt that her VSU was
something she had to do, because the school required
her to do it. We might infer that she did not experience
a significant enough wellbeing benefit from the activity
to want to do it when she felt down and tired. The
priorities of all (student, parent and the pastoral tutor)
are predicated on the need for maximum scores in the
anticipated exams. This is indicative of the application
of “instrumental reason” to a situation focused on a
student’s wellbeing and mental health (Taylor).
Taylor (2003) suggests that in the absence of other
criteria, the value of our actions is determined according
to “cost-benefit” analysis. In this example an attitude
towards education that carries an implicit, silent
set of moral value judgements is being justified by
instrumental reason. There is no recognition from the
child, parent or the educator, that the simple act of
reading a poem aloud to another person is beneficial
to a wider group of people than the individual student.
This is sacrificed in the interests of maximal exam grades
and mental health and wellbeing, arguably become
secondary considerations.
In the context of evaluating the wellbeing benefits
of reading poetry aloud, my observations suggest
that any positive wellbeing in the form of feelings of
connectedness are mitigated by the priorities of the
students. The high academic standards of the school and
the competitive selection process for entry mean the
students who attend the school already have a greater
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