Learning is Fun by Nature

Many of the blogs I read and workshops I attend use the same phrase when describing various teaching techniques; they call them ways to "make learning fun." However lately, I've come to the conclusion that learning, by nature, is fun. Example: While at my parent's house over Thanksgiving, I must have run the battery on my smartphone dead 3 times simply looking up random facts and answers to various questions. (For the record, that is meant to be a testament to how many things I researched, not to my poor battery life.) I learned that there are different genus of plants known as "mistletoe" and how to identify the species that were poisonous. I also learned that difference between sweet potatoes and yams, that Butler University is in Indianapolis (Who's Butler, you ask? Ask UNC. They'll tell you) and that Tim Tebow is a month and a half younger than me (yet makes so much more money.) Why was I looking for all this information? Because it was fun.

I think that it is human nature to want to learn. To want to know more about the world and how it works. And so by nature, learning is fun. So the key in education is not to make learning fun. If your students are truly learning they should be having fun by default. The key, then, is to make sure that your students are truly learning. Encourage them to ask questions and then go find the answers. Sell your subject matter, whatever it is. Even if it is the worst topic ever (*cough*cough*soil science*cough*) if your students believe that it is something you appreciate and that it is important in this world, they will want to know what it is. They will want to know, want to learn, want to understand. Why? Because it's fun!

They are why we teach...

The past three weeks have been THE most challenging weeks of my teaching career so far. Granted, that's only about a year and a half, but I always thought that the first year was the hardest. But the happenings of the last couple of weeks have been things that no college class, no student teaching experience, no workshop, and no text book could have ever prepared me for.

Let's back up to two weeks ago; I have learned that "Teacher Work Days" and "Professional Development" is teacher code for paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. As I sat in our "Professional Development" session listening to all the stuff that was expected of me I became more and more discouraged. This was not what I signed up for. I'm here to teach, to coach, to mentor, to work with students. Not to write papers and sit through meetings that won't have an impact on my ability to teach in any way. But as the "stuff" piled up, so did the discouragement and for the first time in my entire life I started wondering, "what could I do besides teach?" (And for those of you who know me, you know that when I say "my entire life" I mean, my entire life. All I've wanted to do since I learned what a teacher was is to be a teacher.)

As the weeks went on, so did the assignments, paperwork, needless meetings, and flaming hoops to jump through. I'd had all I could take. I stayed late on Friday night doing all the things I needed to get done so that I could go home and spend Saturday and Sunday thinking about anything besides school.

Boy, was I wrong.

Around 1:30am on Saturday I received a call that the unthinkable had happened. Four of our students were in a very serious car accident, and one of them didn't make it. His name was Ronald. He was a proud FFA member and fire fighter. He was on our Hunter Safety Team. He was on our Tool ID team. He was at every meeting causing roars of laughter everywhere he went. He was a hard worker, probably the hardest working student I've ever taught. He was mischievous, and silly, and funny, and caring... and now he was gone.

This is the hardest thing about teaching that I have ever experienced. Harder than any assignment or duty or workshop or professional development. And it took me until Saturday afternoon when I was talking to my teaching partner understand why exactly this was so hard: because this was meaningful.

I realized in that moment that I don't teach because I think it is absolutely imperative that every student in the world be able to calculate board feet or remember the formula for photosynthesis or remember what comes between the gizzard and the cloaca in a chicken. I teach because I like helping students. And in 30 years, no matter if I'm teaching or if I've moved on to another calling in life, I won't remember what his grade was or what he scored on the final. I won't remember if he was able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills during our Paideia. But I will remember how he found a hand full of zip ties and attached them to everything he could in my classroom (there's still one on my door knob that I can't get off.) And I will remember how he taped his initials on the wall and when I made him take it down he took the paint down with it. And I will remember how he looked so goofy with his Wranglers tucked inside his cowboy boots and how he didn't care that he looked goofy.

And those are the things I will remember because those are the things that are meaningful, the things that mattered.

I have spent the last 3 days worrying, not over my lesson plans, but over my students. I haven't been very good at attendance and I haven't done a great job getting my purchase orders to the bookkeeper or signing in and out, but I have tried to be there for my students every possible moment because they are what matters. They are all that matters. They are why we teach. And if we neglect them, then we negate our entire purpose for being here. If we allow the paperwork, and the politics, and the stuff to take priority over them, then we have failed them.

They are what matters. They are all that matters. They are why. we. teach.