Should School Be Fun?

Should school be fun? It’s a simple question, but it doesn’t have a simple answer.

If we say no, we are freely admitting to subjecting children to 180 days of drudgery every year. That doesn’t seem right.

If we say yes, we get ourselves in a tough situation where we have failed as soon as we cease to be able to hold our students’ attention or the moment we ask them to complete a task they don’t find inherently interesting.

It’s pretty clear there’s a ditch on either side.

In classrooms where fun is not prioritized, students often struggle to stay engaged in what they’re learning. Their attention wanders, they are less motivated, and they tend to develop negative attitudes towards school. This is where we see children losing their sparkle, trudging through the day, only coming alive at recess and dismissal.

But on the other hand, if a teacher is chasing “fun” as the ultimate goal, the classroom often feels chaotic and lacks a stability that helps students feel grounded and safe. The actual content can be easily sacrificed in the chase for something dazzling and exciting. Little true learning takes place, and students succumb to a sort of dopamine addiction, always needing their lessons to include bigger and better flashes of fun to keep the boredom away.

So what is the middle road between these two undesirable extremes?

To answer that question, we first need to determine what we are trying to accomplish by having students come to school. That is a complex question in itself, one that can be explored in more detail here. But in short, the goal of Christian educators should be to help shape disciples who are equipped to serve their world, and this happens through learning about God, themselves, and the world we live in.

And so, we see that the point of school is not to have fun. The point of school is to learn.

Now sometimes, learning is fun. But also, learning can be hard work, and hard work does not always feel fun.

This is not an excuse to put in minimal effort and present information in the most straightforward (and often boring) way possible. It is the job of the teacher, the presenter of the information, to draw the students in by making lessons engaging and utilizing a variety of teaching methods.

This means that teachers should approach their lessons with their objectives clearly in mind. What will my students learn today? After the teacher determines those objectives, they should then choose a path forward of how their students can best learn that information.

Sometimes, the best way for students to learn something is by listening to a lecture or completing a worksheet page. Although those things don’t seem inherently “fun,” if they are the most effective way to teach the concept to the students, then they are the best approach. However, both of these methods can be overused to the point of tedium. There are many other ways to present content, and doing things like hands-on activities, experiments, and group projects often engages students’ minds in the learning process much more effectively. And yes, those things are also more “fun.”

In my early years as a teacher, I was a huge believer that school should be fun. I gained a reputation as a “fun teacher,” which actually just put a lot of pressure on me to maintain that perception. As I grew in wisdom and experience, I started to see the ways that my mindset of “make learning fun” was actually unhealthy in some ways.

The main problem was that I was making fun an end in itself. This was misguided. Instead of being motivated by fun, I started to learn how to be motivated by teaching rigorously, inspiring wonder, capturing my students’ imaginations, and giving them rich learning experiences. And I learned that when those things were the driving force behind a lesson, my students often enjoyed the process of learning. But the actual learning had to be the most important thing.

It’s a bit like what they say about instilling healthy eating habits in young children. If you say, “You may not have any dessert until you’ve eaten all your broccoli,” you can actually work against your child learning to enjoy the broccoli. They subconsciously learn that vegetables become the undesirable thing they must get through in order to get to the sweet dessert they really want.

The same thing can happen with learning. If we say, “If everyone works really hard and reads these textbook pages about octopi and answers the twelve comprehension questions on page 32, then we can watch a cool video at the end of class.” This will probably be highly motivating and create the appearance of the students being engaged in their learning. But really, what we are unintentionally communicating is that the work is the undesirable thing we need to get through in order to get to the fun part.

Now, certainly, if the video is worth watching, you should watch it with your students, because the octopus is an amazing creature which does astounding things that need to be seen to be believed. But instead of using the video as the carrot on the end of a stick, why not use it as the hook that draws them in at the beginning of the lesson by making students feel awe at the wonders of octopi and naturally motivated to learn more about them? Better yet, create a series of questions or an activity page that students complete while watching the video. Allow content from the textbook and comprehension questions to be taught more naturally through actually observing the octopus in the video. The video will provide intrinsic wonder and amazement, making students want to learn the content.

Using something fun like a video as the framework in which learning happens is so much better than simply tacking it on for the sake of making class more fun.

That is the key distinction which makes all the difference when it comes to the question of fun.

It is good to have fun with our students. Our classrooms should be places of joy and laughter, intrigue and imagination, creativity and wonder. Teachers should strive for these things.

We want our students to learn to delight in the world God has created, become life-long learners, and develop a strong work ethic. When those values guide teachers, school will inspire awe, encourage engagement, and develop character in our students.

And, oh yes, we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.