A few weeks ago, Old Andrew wrote that learning can sometimes be Hard Work, reminding us that while learning can indeed be fun sometimes, it’s not always the case. There comes a time when, in order to progress and learn something new, we have to actually make an effort and challenge ourselves, which might mean sitting down with a book and actually working something out for ourselves or – God forbid! – learning something off by heart!
I read this article in the Telegraph a couple of days ago which argued that Motivational gimmicks ‘undermine’ the intellectual content of lessons and found myself nodding in agreement while thinking back to Old Andrew’s post and about my own experiences of lesson planning.
I sat in a Staff Meeting a few weeks ago at which the (new) Head told us all that he didn’t think the kids at my school were enjoying their lessons enough (or words to that effect). I think the word that strikes fear into all our hearts was also used. You know the one I mean. The three-letter one that begins with “f” and ends with “n”.
I have absolutely no problem with trying to make my lessons enjoyable and engaging. I want the kids I teach to enjoy the time I spend teaching them, but this emphasis on lessons being “fun” ALL THE TIME isn’t doing pupils any favours. Not everything in school – and in life – is all-singing, all-dancing, all-the-time. Some things just have to be learned and some effort on the part of the pupils is required in order for that learning to take place. At the same meeting, we were also informed that staff were working “much harder than the pupils”, and that this shouldn’t be the case.
Er… huh? On the one hand we’re expected to be entertaining and plan these mightily interesting, engaging and FUN lessons to stop the poor little dears from suffering that nasty old boredom, but on the other, we mustn’t work too hard? What planet is he living on?? But then, he’s probably not taught for a while and doesn’t realise quite how much work it takes to provide this amount of “fun”.
There was a thread on the TES forums this week about whether people felt their workloads were increasing, despite the various guidelines now in place regarding non-contact time, and the administrative tasks that teachers aren’t supposed to do. But despite that, most people were agreeing with the OP that they seemed to be working harder than ever – and given the amount of time I’ve spent these last couple of days preparing just ONE lesson, I’m not surprised. It’s a lesson for a bottom set MFL class – and I’ve spent ages scouring the web for pictures for powerpoints, and making up games… which I’ll use just this once and for about twenty minutes.
I don’t know that the answer is – in fact, I doubt there is one because while the educational establishment is obsessed with the idea that kids need to have “fun” in order to learn anything, and seems to have dismissed the idea that learning FOR ITS OWN SAKE is A Good Thing I can only see this trend continuing and getting worse, to the point where the TDA will require teachers to pass tests in Juggling and Unicycle Riding as well as in basic Literacy and Numeracy.
I’ll admit that I work in a particularly challenging school where there are a large number of pupils with very low self-esteem who will, when presented with anything that’s even vaguely unfamilliar or which seems as though it may require some effort, instantly say that they can’t do it, or it’s too hard. But we’re not doing them any favours whatsoever by trying to cocoon them into an environment where nothing is hard, and learning requires no effort. Life isn’t like that. Sometimes life is boring – or hard – and we can’t all be good at everything. To my mind, this is all parcelled up with another ridiculous trend – that of not allowing kids to be bad at something or to fail. The idea of rewards for all, regardless of effort – and in many cases, its the badly behaved pupils who end up getting rewarded for simply shutting up and/or sitting still, while the kids who behave well and do exactly as they’re expected to get left out – is teaching kids that whatever they do is enough to get them through whereas we know that in the real world it isn’t. Life isn’t fair – we can’t all be winners, but what we can do (and should be doing, but aren’t) is teaching kids that while that is indeed the case, they’re almost certain to be better off if they try – if they attempt to do the things they think are hard and get their heads down and LEARN things without those things having to be sugar coated all the time. Come to think of it, they’d probably learn more as well, because teachers would be able to spend their time planning actual lessons rather than thinking up new methods of entertainment!
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