ClassRealm

Here’s an idea that looks perfect for a grade six class of boys: doing the entire curriculum as a role-playing game. What a great way to generate enthusiasm.

And it brings up an important point. Why isn’t this the obvious thing to do? Why haven’t we long ago harnessed the same techniques that make role-playing games so popular to improve learning in the classroom? Schools and educational theorists seem to consistently miss out on this very important point: that education is and should be entertainment. If you do not have the students’ attention, nothing else is going to happen.

Fortunately, we have a vast body of knowledge about how to make things entertaining: from the people who put out popular magazines, novels, movies, music, toys, games, public speaking, salesmanship, and advertising. From the people who work in the circus, the amusement park, the theatre, the comics industry. From just about anybody who runs any business that must attract customers. Magazine publishers, for example, know exactly what they can put on their cover to boost sales.

Not only does the educational establishment ignore all this valuable information: they consciously scorn it. It is beneath them. Perhaps it is evil capitalism. There is a perverse idea that in order to be educational, a thing must be dry and dull.

Nothing at all could be further from the truth. Look at small animals at play; or small children, for that matter. They are learning, quite deliberately. All play is educational by nature. Tiger cubs play-pounce, learning to hunt. Little girls play with dolls, learning to mother. Boys compete to learn how to stay on a skateboard, or make a yoyo return.

This is a good rule of thumb: far from being at cross purposes, being entertaining and being educational are the same thing. If it is not entertaining, it is not educational.

And if everyone does not love to go to a school, this is proof that that school is failing. As most schools clearly are. The surest mark of educational success is retention rate: how many students stay on until graduation.