Fostering wellbeing competence through crosscurricular teaching: Wellbeing and skills for life

This chapter argues that the concern for students’ wellbeing should be seen as integral to the main objectives of teaching and education. Wellbeing is crucially important for students’ motivation and learning, across the curriculum, and achieving sufficient wellbeing is a fundamental life goal that calls for cross- and transcurricular teaching, including teaching of basic life skills. Recent discussions of Bildung have tended to overlook or downplay the importance of subjective wellbeing, though the classical conception emphasizes that acquisition of skills and knowledge must be personally and emotionally satisfying; this is also supported by contemporary theories of flow, self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation. Drawing in part on recent research on the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on students’ wellbeing, the chapter also introduces the notion of wellbeing competence, distinguishing its different components and giving suggestions for how to foster it in the classroom.