SHOULD LEARNING BE FUN? 

BY Saashya Rodrigo

There is a common expectation that learning needs to be fun in order for it to be fruitful. So much so that if learning is not made fun, it’s widely accepted that students will likely not learn the material being taught. Therefore, ingrained in us is a strong belief that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that lessons are taught in a fun and engaging manner.

Fun is easy enough to incorporate with younger students where content knowledge is tangible and concrete. They are as playful and imaginative as they’re excited about the novelty of school and learning. For example, adding and subtracting single digit numbers can be made fun and engaging by using roleplays to set up a small shop in the classroom where students take turns being customers and cashiers.

Textbooks and educational posters are filled with colourful eye-catching illustrations, which run parallel with what children of that age are exposed to and attracted to outside academia.

But as lessons get more advanced, and the content knowledge becomes less tangible and more abstract, maintaining the fun in lessons can be a daunting task.

Furthermore, older students are no longer entertained by elementary level fun. Regardless, how does one teach advanced content knowledge such as differential equations or ionic and covalent bonds in a way that’s clear and meaningful in the context of that subject matter but also relevant, age appropriate and fun?


Perhaps it’s time to consider the less popular opposing consensus that not all learning needs to be fun. The debate here stems from the notion that ‘fun’ means ‘engaging’ and if material isn’t made fun, it can’t be engaging.

However, while fun may go hand in hand with engagement – i.e. one can only have fun if one is entertained, engagement does not have to necessarily go hand in hand with fun. Although one might be fully engaged in a task, that task needn’t bring about enjoyment and entertainment.

For example we can be fully engaged in tasks such as filing tax returns or changing phone plans but for many of us, these tasks aren’t necessarily fun. The task completion depends more on our engagement rather than the amount of enjoyment we get out of doing it.

While making learning fun isn’t impossible and should certainly be a goal to strive for, the bigger goal to strive for is engagement. It’s not the teacher’s responsibility to turn the classroom into a carnival. It is however, the teacher’s responsibility to ensure student engagement. The distinction between the two is important to understand when we consider the demands and expectations we place on schools and teachers.

It’s the goal of keeping students engaged that needs to be at the forefront of every teacher’s mind because student engagement paves the way for student achievement.

Once engagement is achieved, the door opens for fun or the many other multifaceted byproducts that maintain engagement such as the curiosity to learn more, determination to complete the task due to an incentive that awaits or competitiveness leading to the acceptance of a challenge.

In instances where fun doesn’t end up as a byproduct of engagement, the lesson is likely to promote other valuable life skills such as self-discipline, self-regulation, self-control, and patience. As Professor of Human Development at Merrimack College Dr. Michael Mascolo rightly suggests, such life skills are arguably as important, if not more important, to learn as the content itself.

Facilitating and helping to maintain internal stimulation rather than being the constant source of external stimulation is the key to student engagement, which leads to the ultimate outcome of cognitive achievement. With prolonged engagement and its inevitable result of cognitive achievement comes the reward of self-fulfillment, which ultimately fuels internal motivation to optimise the learning that takes place.

Another supporting argument is that teachers are responsible for instilling value in the content they teach. Textbook writer and Director at St Bonaventure’s Teaching School in London Andy Lewis emphasises that teachers need to believe in the value of the content they teach. If teachers don’t understand the importance of the content they teach, students are unlikely to value learning that content and that hinders engagement.

Ultimately, the idea that educators need to be entertainers in order to successfully teach students is a misconception that must be laid to rest. Student learning is dependent on society understanding the importance of education and teachers understanding and communicating the value of the content they teach.