Fun and learning are not either/or.
We’re taught pretty thoroughly – and consistently – in school that there are two tiers of behavior. There’s relaxed, fun, social behavior and there is serious, focused, studious behavior.
The outcome is that students don’t know how to have fun while learning. They have compartmentalized fun and learning into different rooms – even different buildings!
For me, that’s a real tragedy. Because I think learning is fun. I want to learn.
And more importantly, I want my students to be having fun while they’re learning. There is a gear of rehearsal where everyone is having fun – laughing, joking – while still focused and on task, not disrupting each other or doing the work halfway.
But when we have this false dichotomy so thoroughly entrenched in our students, they literally don’t know how to find this gear. It’s either deadly serious, or disruptively fun.