Ideals, Education, and Happy Flourishing

Abstract

In this essay, Doret J. de Ruyter defends the claim that parents as well as professional educators need to impart ideals to children in order to realize their wish that children become happy and flourishing adults. The argument consists of two parts. First, de Ruyter shows how ideals are important to construing the meaning of objective goods. Second, she contends that educating children with ideals is important to motivating them to strive for something higher or better. De Ruyter’s analysis rests on two key concepts: “ideals,” which refer to things one believes to be superb, excellent, or perfect, but that are as yet unrealized, and “happy flourishing,” which describes the fulfillment of objectively identifiable generic goods and the person’s satisfactory meaningful interpretation of these goods.

Formal criteria for the concept of human flourishing: the first step in defending flourishing as an ideal aim of education

“…We believe it is worth defending flourishing as an aim of education, because we do think it important for both educators and children to have high aims, so that educators will strive to create the optimal conditions for children and for children to get the best chance to develop themselves towards the ideal of an optimal life. We side with Emmet (1994), where she argues that regulative ideals, impossible as they may seem or are to realise, give us direction in life (see for instance Emmet 1994;Frankfurt 1999;De Ruyter 2007, on the importance of ideals). However, we do understand that the open, formal criteria that we have proposed might invoke connotations of competitiveness or images of over-achieving, performance-oriented children (and educators).…”

“…Therefore, we think that it is helpful to distinguish between 'a flourishing life' (being the ideal) and the verb 'to flourish' (representing an actual evaluation, e.g. De Ruyter 2007, 2015. A flourishing life refers to the (Aristotelian) ideal of flourishing throughout an entire lifetime while the verb 'to flourish' is used in situations where an evaluation is made about a certain time-slice in someone's life and in which less demanding standards are applied (see De Ruyter 2015, 89).…”

Why Education in Public Schools Should Include Religious Ideals

“…the ideals to which fellow citizens aspire. Third, we will argue that the possibility that children will flourish as adults is advanced by offering them a variety of ideals to examine and consider (see also Levinson and Levinson 2007;De Ruyter 2007). Religious ideals provide a valuable source of alternative views on what contributes to a flourishing life.…”

The influence of family context on life, educational and occupational ideal among middle school students in China

“…An Ideal can also be regarded as an “aspiration,” which refers to situations, or characteristics that a person believes to be superb, excellent or perfect, and that he/she strives to achieve, but has not yet realised (De Ruyter, ). For adolescents in middle school, life, educational and occupational ideals are very important ideals, which are known to be related to life satisfactions (Plagnol & Easterlin, ), educational achievement (Guo & Sui, ; Xie & Chen, ) and career development.…”

“…An Ideal can also be regarded as an "aspiration," which refers to situations, or characteristics that a person believes to be superb, excellent or perfect, and that he/she strives to achieve, but has not yet realised (De Ruyter, 2007). For adolescents in middle school, life, educational Correspondence should be addressed to Benxian Yao, College of Educational Science, Anhui Normal University, No.…”