The Importance of Joy

I’ve recently been reflecting quite a bit about the role of joy in our young people’s lives. “Joy” first showed up in my house this fall, quite literally, as the main character and protagonist of Disney/Pixar’s new hit, Inside Out 2, which my son has made our entire family watch at least two dozen times (that doesn’t include previews). In the film, Joy, who previously led the team of emotions running the “console” in teenage Riley’s brain, is pushed out by a new emotion/character: Anxiety. Through the course of the film we see Anxiety try to help Riley in all the wrong ways: co-opting her imagination to envision worst-case scenarios and trying to solve for all of them, leading Riley into all-or-nothing thinking about her future success or failure, and pushing her to make impulsive choices from a place of fear. 

As I watched the movie, I couldn’t help but see the connection to the college process and the way that anxiety - about being admitted, about being “good enough,” about whether the name of a college might impact future success - has similarly seemed to exile joy from the minds and hearts of our Upper School students. Instead of seeing Upper School as a chance to explore new interests, many students view it as a resume-building exercise - merely going through the motions to put together a list of activities that (they think) will sound impressive to colleges and max out their Activities Section of the Common App. After all, more is always better, right? (Spoiler alert: it isn’t!) Similarly, instead of embracing their curiosity and trying a new elective, many students will stick with those topics where they feel confident they can earn an “A” and preserve their GPA. And, perhaps most devastating to watch, some will impulsively drop activities and interests that they have enjoyed (sometimes for years) in order to make time for things they think a college might value more, like standardized testing.

The result of all these anxiety-driven decisions and behaviors are high school students that are more stressed, more exhausted, and more uncertain of who exactly they are and what exactly they want in a college experience. They have built an identity around where they want to go to college instead of choosing a college that aligns with their identity. They are more likely to second guess their college list as seniors, more likely to switch majors multiple times or transfer schools completely once they get to college, and more likely to come back as graduates and say: I wish I had done it all differently. 

 Earlier this year, Mrs. Brown, our Registrar and the parent of two W+H alumni, shared a viral TikTok video with Ms. Birnhak and me. In it, the former Dean of Admissions at Brown University, Jim Miller, spends a solid two minutes talking about one of the things colleges value most, but are seeing less and less: joy. 

 “When you get to college you’re in classes for about two to three hours a day, right? You live on campus, you eat there, you sleep there, so you have about 21 hours a day where no one is going to tell you what to do. All of a sudden you’ve got all this freedom. And so what we want to do is bring in students who are very committed to stuff outside the classroom. And it doesn’t matter what you do…it doesn’t matter what you do with your time as long as you do it with some sense of purpose and some sense of joy. Your generation is very credentialed. You’ve done an awful lot of stuff, you’ve taken an awful lot of courses. But sometimes the adults in your life take the joy out of it. So what we’re really looking for is the joy.” - Jim Miller, Former Dean of Admissions, Brown University

 Reading through my students’ supplemental essay drafts (which just came in this week for the November 1 deadlines!) I’m again noticing patterns: almost all of them are asking students to reflect on an activity/interest/community that brings them joy and how they will spread that joy once they arrive on campus. They are checking to make sure that under all the polished accolades, awards, and resumes there is still a living, breathing 17-year-old who belts out Britney Spears songs (I’m dating myself) with their friends at the top of their lungs or looks forward to Fright Fest at Six Flags every October. 

It feels like more than a coincidence that at the same time Disney/Pixar releases a movie about Anxiety trying to oust Joy in teenage Riley’s brain, we are also seeing books like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt hit New York Times Bestsellers lists and become required reading for educators, parents and counselors across the country. Perhaps one simple way we can try to combat this growing tide of anxiety and depression in our young people is to ask our students an essential question: What brings you joy? If we can truly listen to their answer, perhaps we can also help them hold onto it.