CENTRAL QUESTION:  DOES SCHOOL HAVE TO BE 'FUN?'

                                   Central question: does school have to be 'fun?'

May 28, 1997

At the heart of the debate over how we teach our kids is the argument between the traditionalists who insist kids must first learn the fundamentals and the new-age educators who insist we first have to teach kids to like learning. It's a huge divergence of opinion, and from that central disagreement stem all others.

I've written rather extensively over the past year or so on the subject, but I don't think I've ever addressed that central-core argument. To understand the new-age education movement which is predominant in our society at the moment, you have to understand where it comes from.

In that, we're aided by a tract from the Georgia State University Master Teacher Program: On Objectives (available via Internet at http://web.archive.org/web/20020305115709/http://www.gsu.edu/~dschjb/wwwobj.html), by GSU's Harvey J. Brightman. Katy ISD dropped a $272.75 check on Georgia State in April of 1996 to study it, and it provides a wealth of insights on why we're teaching the way we're teaching these days.

The traditional concept of education is relatively simple: you present the subject matter to be learned, and the student either does or does not learn it. Memorization is a major component; whether a student is actually interested in the subject is of little consequence. The individual, not the system, is responsible for learning, and if he or she doesn't learn it — he or she fails. Period.

Modern educational thought stems from Bloom's Taxonomy, first introduced by psychologist Benjamin Bloom, following up on earlier work by psychologists John Dewey and B.F. Skinner. Harvey's analysis briefly describes the learning levels underlying Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive and affective learning objectives.

Bloom breaks cognitive learning into six levels: knowledge, exercise-solving, comprehension, problem-solving or application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Very early on, Bloom diverges from traditional education with the idea that rote memorization doesn't work.

"Memorized material is soon forgotten," Harvey writes. "Unless material is personally anchored (students attach personal meaning), the knowledge becomes garbled."

There is some evidence to support this conclusion, where higher-level subjects are concerned; however, traditionalists argue that the fundamental skills MUST be memorized, because without them, students cannot progress to higher levels.

It's Bloom's taxonomy of affective objectives, however, which has spawned the greatest debate between traditionalists and new-age educators. Bloom breaks affective learning into five levels: receiving, responding, valuing, organization and characterization.

The idea of affective learning is to manipulate students to LIKE what they're learning, to come to see it as valuable, to excite an interest in the process.

At the receiving level, students "tolerate" a subject; the other levels stem from their increasing interest in it. Bloom holds that the more they like the subject, the more they are likely to learn about it.

"At the responding level, student behavior is not only externally driven (by grades) but also internally driven by finding pleasure in the subject," Harvey writes. "Students volunteer to come to review sessions, read additional non-required articles in their leisure time, or derive satisfaction from completing an assignment."

Again, there's a lot of evidence to indicate that yes, students who are interested in school perform better than those who are not. Along that line, you can't fault educators for attempting to generate enthusiasm.

The question most often raised by traditionalists, however, is whether we're putting too much emphasis on trying to instill enthusiasm and "have fun" in class — and, indeed, whether it should even be the schools' responsibility to do so in the first place.