Educators and education styles have undergone a transformation over the last few decades. When my mum asked me how my day at school was, my standard reply was that it was work and more work. My son’s response to the same question usually is that they played and played and did some studies too. Welcome to the world of fun based learning.

The advantages of learning through fun activities are many. It is based on the fact that knowledge acquired through activities one enjoyed, still resides in our mind, however little we may have used it, and while lessons we crammed are gone shortly after the examinations were over. How many of actually remember the Hindi alphabets which we learnt by rote.

Visual learning is a large part of fun learning and the more a lesson is brought to life, the easier it is for the child to absorb it. Similarly, learning through association, hands-on activities and projects, games designed to reinforce concepts, go a long way in helping a child imbibe a lesson. Sometimes, just a simple change in environment stimulates the mind. Using different visual aids, films and pictures not only helps the teacher hold the attention of the students but also allows the lesson to settle in the long-term memory of the student, versus short-term.

Humor introduced in any class is again a useful tool for learning. Humor allows short breaks to the mind. Teachers could also build in short activities designed to give the children some movement as they get tired sitting in one position for so long and their minds become dull.
Many of us must be familiar with the concept of right-brain and left-brain. The left side of the brain is the seat of language and processes in a logical and sequential order. The right side is more visual and processes intuitively, holistically and randomly. The process of learning is optimized when instruction techniques connect with both sides of the brain, to foster a more whole-brained scholastic experience. Also studies have shown that for most individuals, one side of the brain is more dominant over the other and so they have a distinct preference for a thinking style. Individuals, for whom the left-brain dominates, focus on logical thinking, analysis and accuracy while for those whom the right-brain dominates focus on aesthetics, feeling and creativity.

Learning in itself is fun. It is the method of delivery or the sheer volume that a student is forced to tackle, that makes it tedious. And while it is easier to deliver lessons to younger children that they enjoy, educators need to be creative to make all education interesting. If you look at the word problems in most math textbooks, all the names used are Ram and Shyam, Sita and Gita or something similar. Such names could be changed to children’s favorite characters so that they pay attention to the question. It is all about getting the child interested and a smarter one too.