Can school be fun?

John Merrow, noted education reporter for PBS' News Hour and other outlets, asked on his blog today "Should school be serious fun? If so, how?"

Here's what Steve wrote back:

Can school be fun? School has to be fun. But the fun cannot be added on – like a party or a field trip or an occasional game. The fun can’t be icing on the cake; it has to be baked in.

For example, when we teach reading and writing using the Reader’s and Writer’s workshop model, the fun just oozes out. It’s fun to share your writing with an audience and to hear what others are writing. It’s fun to read books you like and to talk about them with other readers. And it’s a lot of fun watching your teacher model all the things he wants you to do – and sometimes make mistakes in the process.

What’s not fun? Using a textbook. Doing test prep activities. Having no choices over what you study. Being told again and again that you’re a bad student because you keep getting Ds and Fs because the material you’re studying is way above your grade level and there’s no differentiated instruction going on.

Learning, as a natural human experience, is inherently fun. It’s the traditions of school that take the fun out. It’s the mindless focus on product over process and participation that takes the fun out. It’s discovering that school is not about you that takes the fun out. It’s teachers, who have been robbed of the fun of teaching, that takes the fun out.