Pleasurable and Meaningful Education Nowadays, most students find themselves che ated in education because of the education

system used in most of high school s and colleges in America. But in a system where Bs are average and Cs might indicate that although a student tried she did not demonstrate understanding or skill, the poorer students continue to advance through the system while remaining trapped at th e bottom (Bruno 269). As a result, students are not well prepared for their carrier goals, after finishing schools. This is probably because most students can not derive meaning and pleasure from their education. In other words, they can not locate the sources where they can get happiness in their education. Tal Ben-Shahar states that a love making model can help students derive happiness from education. The model will be more effective if students study themselves and try to get flow experience in learning before they use the model to find happiness in education. Tal Ben-Shahar define the model as the ability to derive happiness from every actions studen ts do to achieve their goals (84). In other words, students enjoy the whole journey s before they arrived at their destinations. Thus, students need to derive meaning and pleasure from each action they have done to enjoy their journeys.

In fact, students should find the source s from which they can derive meaning and pleasure. Studying themselves will help them to find the sources. Pepellashi suggests that education should include a process to define one-self and the criteria by which one chooses to live (145). When students study themselves, they will find the things which make them happy or which give them meaning and pleasure to become happy. For example, some students find pleasure in reading while others find it in writing. As these activities help students to improve their reading and writing skills in education, both of the act ivities are also meaningful to them. They are more meaningful to students who dream to become famous writers. Therefore, doing the activities, which are related to education, giving them meaning and pleasure helps students to achieve their goals. As they find the activities - sources- are meaningful and pleasurable to them, they will derive satisfaction from doing them and enjoy their journeys. In addition, doing the activities helps students to get the flow experience in their studies. Tal Ben-Shahar mentions flow experience as a zone where action and awareness are merged (86). At that state, students not only experience pleasure and meaning of activities but also perform at their best. When in a state of flow we enjoy both peak experience and peak performance: we experience pleasure and perform at our best (Ben-Shahar 86). As a result, they will learn more from what

they are doing than other students who are not in flow experience or who regard school activities as work. As flow experience helps students to get meaning and pleasure required for pursuing happiness from learning, getting flow experience in studies becomes the essential part of the love making model. Thus, students should avoid thinking learning as work to get into the flow experience. Tal Ben-Shahar mentions that Perceiving school as work largely prevents students from enjoying their educational experience, because there is a socie ty-wide prejudice against work (91). This fact is convincible. If students conceive the schools as works, they will think learning as a duty. As a result, they will emotionlessly do the learning, so they can not derive meaning a nd pleasure from what they are learning. However, the common strategy which is mistakenly used by most students to achieve happiness in their college education is rat racing technique: students forgo their current happiness to gain more happiness in the future. As students think that they have to study to achieve their goals, they treat studying as duty. As a result, they can not derive meaning and pleasure to pursue happiness in education from studying. However, they will achieve their educational goals without enjoying the ir journeys. As a result, students get relief s which are mistaken for happiness by rat racers after achieving their goals. Therefore, rat racing

technique does not give real happiness to students in their education as the love making model does. In fact, the love making model also helps students to derive satisfaction from learning . If students derive happiness from studying a subject, they will closely learn the subject. For example, a student interested in computer science will derive meaning and pleasure from writing program. Thus, he derives happiness from studying programming language, such as JAVA and C++. While studying these languages, he will not only do assignments but also do extra works, such as writing a program with friends for amateur purposes which is not assigned by instructors, which can improve his programming skill s. Consequently, he will get experience from creating his favorite software. Moreover, he will learn about the experiences his friends received from creating amat eur software through team work. Experience can be used to derive wisdom. David Crabtree points out that wisdom can be derived from experience (214). Thus, he will derive wisdom from the experiences to improve intelligence in programming. As his intelligence is improved, he will not find difficulties in dealing with problems in programming. Daniel Bruno says that intelligence is the ability of using knowledge to see causes and solve problems (266). As a consequence, he will not be worried about finding himself weak when he gets employed. Thus, he derives satisfaction from his learning.

Therefore, studying oneself and getting flow experience help students use the lovemaking model effectively to enjoy their college education and derive satisfaction from it. Thus, I hope that love making model is the best strategy to drive happiness and satisfaction from education.

Work Cited Ben-Shahar, Tal. Happier. New York: McGraw.Hill, 2007. Print.

Bruno, Daniel. Entitlement Education The Composition of Everyday Life . Ed. John Mauk and John Metz. 2 nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2007.577-81. Print. Crabtree, David. Why a Great Books Education Is the Most Pratical! The Composition of Everyday Life . Ed. John Mauk and John Metz. 2 nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2007. 577 -81. Print. Pepellashi, Petra. What Is Education? The Composition of Everyday Life . Ed. John Mauk and John Metz. 2 nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2007. 577-81. Print.