Smiles are only wonderful when they’re spontaneous

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

A secondary school principal in Leicestershire in the UK has made it compulsory for all pupils to smile – although with the full list of rules at this super-strict centre of education, the truth is there’s really very little to smile about.

The army would possibly baulk at a list of instructions that includes maintaining eye contact with the teacher whenever they are talking, never looking out of the window while in class – and learning a series of whistle commands from teachers, that would suggest new head Natalie Teece is a fan of the TV series, One Man and his Dog.

Furthermore, at the end of lessons, children are told to stand silently behind their chairs until they are dismissed and to thank the teacher for the lesson on the way out.

It would appear to be a variation on what the Americans used to call the SLANT technique – instructing children to sit up, listen, ask and answer questions, nod, and track the teacher with their eyes.

And they still reckon your schooldays are the happiest days of your life.

The problem with compulsory smiling is twofold.

First off, it can give the impression that you’re visiting a home for the bewildered when you constantly bump into people with massive smiles – but more fundamentally, a smile has to be the manifestation of a happy reaction.

Compulsory smiling is as impossible as permanent happiness; if you don’t experience the troughs, you’ll never know how to embrace the peaks.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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