Joyful Learning: Are Teachers Ready?

Newspaper reports say that the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has issued an order to ensure playful learning for primary school children. This is something we would really like to appreciate. However, this is surely not a matter that could be accomplished simply by issuing a directive. Rather, it requires more preparations.  It is a matter teachers’ of heart-felt dedication and deep interest in doing something more for the children. A teacher can do it when he is dedicated to the profession and highly motivated to devote much time to the profession and be curious enough to learn and guide students to the path of gradual development. Students sitting in the same classroom may have different interests and aptitudes, making it challenging for teachers to make the teaching-learning situation joyful. However, when a government aims to accomplish such a precious objective, all teachers are bound to follow it. But all are not equally skilled and motivated. So, they are likely to make mess it up again, as we experienced during a previous time when teachers were told to teach joyfully. But, instead joyful teaching and learning, they indulged in doing whatever they liked except facilitating real education.

We apprehend that the same thing will follow now because very few teachers understand what joyful learning really is. The previous initiative continued for two years or more without any fruitful results. It was neither creativity nor joyful learning. It merely wasted students’ precious time, which we cannot afford to revive. To prevent student dropouts and ensure regular attendance, as is not happening in most schools now, teachers have been asked to engage learners in drawing pictures, making earthen pots and other activities. Thus, DPE has introduced teaching through fun under the ‘Learning with Happiness’ programme. As some specific classroom activities have been mentioned, the initiative sounds somewhat reasonable. Education officials from upazila to deputy director level have also been directed to ensure that students display their work to boost their confidence. We appreciate this step. But it is now necessary to do something more.

If we can raise students’ curiosity to learn on their own, they will naturally become motivated to engage in creative activities, making learning enjoyable. Sugata Mitra’s research on slum children provides an excellent example. He installed a computer in a hole in a wall in a New Delhi slum, provided no instructions, and observed what happened. Children who had never seen computers before taught themselves to use them, browse the internet and learn through collaborative discovery. This Hole in the Wall experiment demonstrated that children can organise their own learning with access to resources and peer collaboration, even without formal teaching or adult intervention. We have computer labs in many schools provided by the state, yet students are not learning computers. Our researchers’ work largely remains confined to paper instead of practical innovation like Sugata Mitra’s. He did not ask the government to provide a computer lab with one hundred computers and internet connections; rather, he simply installed a computer in a slum.

Students, guardians and schools all hanker after GPA-5 rather than the joy of learning-- a common complaint. But we hardly acknowledge that admissions, jobs and the reputation of institutions depend on the number of students obtaining GPA-5. In this situation, can we blame students or guardians? Rather, we should offer practical suggestions that can reduce the mad rush for GPA-5 while assessing real merit. 

The government has directed teachers to make education joyful despite the limited scope for arousing students’ curiosity and making classrooms interesting. As one teacher wrote, “Now there is no alternative to make education joyful.” Teachers should not merely complete the textbooks; they should be the source of inspiration. Interactive pedagogy, group work, story-based education, games, sports-based learning, drama, scientific enquiry and experience-based education should be introduced. But who will do it and how? If we can show teachers practical ways within the limitations they face, that will have real merit. Mere airy suggestions cannot help them.

It is the duty of teachers to seek knowledge about various educational techniques, information and ideas from relevant sources. They must regularly read educational articles, journals and the latest research to keep abreast of this new teaching method. Their classrooms are oceans of research, where they encounter different students, situations, problems and solutions every day. These are genuine resources that many education researchers never experience. Practising teachers at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels encounter all the elements of education first-hand, getting an opportunity to develop professionally and make learning more joyful based on practical experience. We simply need to motivate them.

A notion has developed that teachers learn everything through training. But those who conduct training rarely face the practical classroom situations that practising teachers encounter every day-- the richest sources of research and professional development. Some even suggest turning all teacher training colleges into training hubs, implying that practising teachers know little. In reality, trainers mainly possess theories, not the practical experience of school and college teachers. Practising teachers are constantly finding solutions to classroom problems, yet we rarely recognise this. The government, too, is easily influenced by the popular belief that teachers can make their teaching fruitful and enjoyable only through such training. Let us think of it anew and practically.

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The writer is President, English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh (ETAB). He can be reached at [email protected]