Fun and Learning should Coexist

Students, I will tell you what I have experienced.

As someone who has been in Learning and Development for a wee while now, I’ve learnt a lot…with a keen fascination mostly about what makes me, and other people ‘tick’. The other important ‘stuff’ around learning theory, things and topics, I learnt because of my inquisitive nature, my desire to learn new stuff…but all of this with my motivational anchor planted firmly in the camp of ‘learning should be fun wherever possible.

When I was 11 years old, I happened to be in a place called ‘Waikari’ in New Zealand, I went to school there in fact. I wasn’t considered to be a particularly ‘special’ child in any shape or form, (I didn’t think so anyway)

Did I favour any school subject over any of the others? – not particularly, although I seemed to do well in both Maths and English. Looking back on those school days, I realised that it was all about how interesting the teacher was or rather, how interesting the teacher could make a topic.

A great example of this, and as a result, one of my favourite teachers back then, was my English teacher, Miss Shuter. She nailed it when it came to ‘the Interest chart’…

Miss Shuter told the class (30 girls and boys) that we were going to have a spelling competition. The groans were audible and several uncomfortable squirms on seats were noticeable. ‘Miss’ then:

1. Proceeded to hand out identical dictionaries to each of us
2. ‘Virtually split’ the class into 2 teams

‘Ok – this is a team competition’ said Miss. ‘I’m going to give you a word to find in your dictionaries. The first person to raise their hand and tell me the page that the word appears on will win a point for your team. The first team to correctly find 5 words wins!’

This now turned a scary, potentially embarrassing task into something that was worth getting involved in..and with a chance to win!

Miss Shuter continued this game every Monday afternoon for what seemed like forever. I loved her classes and looked forward to going to school after each weekend had finished. ‘Dictionary’ tactics were talked about in the playground…discussions as to whether the words to find will be harder this week than last week? 

Miss Shuter was the best and she made school fun; she got ‘it’..way back then. She knew what she was doing…and she didn’t care as much about who won the weekly dictionary competition as her class of kids did! 

In my experience, she was the first Gamification pioneer!

This has always stuck with me and acted as an inspiration for me in both life and the workplace. I didn’t set out to build a profession in Education and Development – In fact, it was only when I turned 29 years old that I knew what it was that I wanted to do. However, up until my epiphany, I had utilised Miss Shuter’s early gamification techniques and applied them to the workplace. As a manager of people, it helped me to alleviate any potential fears or peer to peer embarrassment that may have laid dormant within individuals in my teams. I have always believed that individual learning has as much to do about creating the environment from which to learn as much as it is about the ability or competence of an individual.

My interest in how I learn and how others learn is pretty much a labour of love for me now. It drives me forward and inspires me.