Making Learning Fun

My daily schedule means that I am normally sat upstairs in my office before other members of the family (apart from Jonathan) have left. They normally come upstairs to see me before they leave.

Some time later I normally go downstairs to make coffee (decaff at the moment) and do some stretching.

This morning I was greeted by a lounge covered in cards – 72 of them.

I know there was 72 of them because they were 3 lots of times-tables – one for the equation, another for the answer.

Emily is right in the middle of learning her times-tables – and she’s struggling.

We have always tried to make learning fun. I have always believed that we learn more when we are having fun, and others seem to agree.

The Chief Happiness Officer had this to say only last week:

Who says our workplaces have to be so boring, lifeless and meaningless that we can only get people to show up there by paying them to sacrifice their time and energy at jobs that don’t make them happy?

Let’s stop doing that, OK? It’s been proven time and again that both schools and workplaces can be fun, energizing affairs that draw people in voluntarily. It’s also been proven that doing this makes them more effective.

Let’s not settle for any less any more!

I’ve always regarded myself as quite privileged to have a job which for the most part I find fun and energizing. The challenge is that people are constantly trying to burden me with things that aren’t fun or energizing. Sometimes I let me guard down and find myself in a position I don’t enjoy. I’m in a 50/50 situation at the moment which means that a good deal of this week will be spent removing the 50% that is dull and adding to the 50% that is fun and energizing. Removing the 50% of dull is not likely to be a good career move in the short term, but experience has shown me that it pays dividends in the long-run.

Fun and energizing is more important to me than almost any other reward you can give me.

The cards were all part of a matching game. We start with the cards all upside down, and you have to match the equation with the answer. The fun is that you get to play the game with Mum or Dad and beat them. The trick is that you have to say the equations out loud all the time embedding them.

tags: learning, fun