According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary of American English, fun means:
Sport; vulgar merriment. A low word.
The word probably descends from Middle English, fon, meaning “to befool.” By 1685, it meant “to cheat, hoax” and later meant “trick, hoax, practical joke.” This older meaning is still preserved in the phrase, “to make fun of.” By 1727, it had taken on the sense of “amusement.” Such as “to have a bit of fun.” (Note on that link…it is no wonder the kids did what they did with parents like that!)
Fun has taken on increasing importance in educational discussions. A simple internet search yields over 45 million results for making learning fun, whether through educational games, videos, internet or books. Children set a high priority on fun, and will readily inform a parent or teacher that what they have been asked to do isn’t “fun” or is “boring.” It does not meet with their standards of a worthwhile pursuit because it is not vulgar merriment.
It also does not inspire. It does not create in the child a desire to be better than he is, to ponder a question or to explore a topic. It does not enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, form the manners and habits of youth nor fit a child for usefulness in his future station, the four tenets of education according to Webster’s 1828. In fact, an emphasis on “fun” does quite the opposite by dulling the understanding through entertainment, indulging the student in his current temper, setting his childish manners and habits and rendering him useless (or at least miserable) in any pursuit where he might be expected to perform tasks that have little or no entertainment value.
Does this mean that education should be “dull and irrelavent” as I mockingly asserted in my first post on this subject? Certainly not. But it does mean that perhaps we need to keep in mind our broader goals and objectives before we set aside our purposefully laid plans in favor of a fun activity that we just discovered. And we should perhaps not be so quick to lose heart when our children are not enjoying every minute of their education.
There are numerous words I prefer to characterize my teaching by than “fun” (not that I’m always successful): inspiring, engaging, challenging, meaningful. I am trying to reach my child’s heart, to “breathe life” into her. I am not trying to entertain her.
Entertainment does not sustain the soul; it merely distracts us. Reflect on your own experiences and compare the challenges you have faced with the hours of entertainment you have indulged in. When all was resolved, which left you with a sense of satisfaction? A sense of being a better person and more confident to meet challenges in the future? Which events have positively impacted who you have become today?
I had a high school English teacher who tried to make her class fun. The class was enjoyable, but I had little respect for the teacher or the subject matter. When the speech teacher gave me his pass book to write myself hall passes so that I could work on my events in the library, hers was always the class I chose to skip. Compare that to college calculus. The teacher was nice enough and willing to help, but I saw no application for the material, knew I’d never use it again and did not really understand the formulas I was applying. In fact, I was often unsure of why my answer was right or how I’d gotten there, but following the pattern worked most of the time. I despised the subject matter and had never worked so hard on any subject in my life. But at the end of it, I was proud of that A…moreso than any of the others which I largely took for granted. I had been challenged and it was a personal victory to conquer the subject.
If I had expected to have fun, I would have walked out of class the first day.
For some related thoughts on creating a meaningful education, check Linda’s post, Children feed on ideas, not on facts.
Related Tags: education, homeschooling, home school, edutainment
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Bravo! I’m printing this one out as a reminder.
“Entertainment does not sustain the soul; it merely distracts us.” That is so true. It is no wonder we are such a weak-minded society. Distraction leads to laziness and every form of wickedness.
We often speak of the Puritans and Pilgrims in sad terms, thinking they had no “fun”–no toys, electricity, difficult and labor-intensive chores. But we do not appreciate their love of learning for the sake of learning. It was not entertainment but education. That line has become blurred.
Anna-Marie
Congratulations on your upcoming event.
I didn’t know you were having another one too. I know what you mean by losing track of the dates when it’s your fourth. lol.
As for this post…I really needed to read this today. I always get frustrated and think I’m doing something wrong because my son does not seem to like school that much. It’s not terribly boring or terribly hard but in light of this I can see why he’s acting that way and why it won’t do to give into his childish desires to play 24/7.
It also reminded me of my favorite line in Toy Story 2. The dinosaur says, as they are leaving on their quest to rescue Woody: “You’d think with all my video game experience I’d be feeling more prepared.”
BTW, I moved my blog: https://mom24bbs.wordpress.com/
Thank you. I am the same way. Children do learn a lot during their free play, but training the mind for worthwhile pursuits is important as well.
And thank you for the blog address! I tried emailing you last night after visiting your hsb blog but it didn’t go through and actually did a websearch to find the one I ended up on!
Great post Dana! I plan to link from my blog!
Stephanie
http://generationtocome.wordpress.com
I didn’t realize that I had changed my posting name but I recently left a comment under “Welcome”.
I have to deal with the whole “Why don’t you make math fun!” mantra from my students every day. It is usually from the lower level kids that have not done well in math because their middle school teachers relied on “making math fun” rather than teaching them the basic skills necessary to succeed in higher level courses.
Occasionally I am able to give students the realization that math becomes fun when they are successful rather than becoming successful when math is made fun. It was awesome this last week in a geometry class when a girl who got a 50% on her first test improved to a 91% on her second. Between the first test and the second she began whining and having a bad attitude but completely changed after the second. All of the sudden she asked to move to the front of the class because she enjoyed her success. She got another A a couple of days ago on a mid-chapter quiz.
Educators in the public school have everything backwards when it comes to motivation. Real internal motivation comes after hard work pays off rather than external motivation leading to success followed by hard work. You sound like you experienced this in your two different classes. The class that you didn’t enjoy brought feelings of joy because the reward of the A which came from hard work.
On a different note, do you know if there is a way to be added to the Christian Bloggers blogroll or is it too late? I noticed that it said they weren’t adding more but I would love to be on that list. Thanks for the comments and the interesting posts.
I’ll share some thoughts as a dedicated homeschooler and Scoutmaster. The founder of Scouting, “BP”, said that Scouting is “Fun with a purpose”.
The aims of Scouting are Character, Civility, and Fitness. The mission is to prepare youth to make ethical and moral choices throughout their lives by instilling the ideals of Scouting. These ideals are in the Scout Law, Oath, Motto, Slogan, Outdoor Code, and Leave No Trace Principles. They include:
**Duty to God**. Duty to Country. Helping other people. Keeping self Physically strong, mentally awake, Morally Straight. Preparedness. Daily service. Trustworthiness, Loyalty, Helpfulness, Friendliness, Courtesy, kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thrift, bravery, cleanliness, **Reverence**, Cleanliness in Outdoor Manners, carefulness with fire, consideration for others, conservation-mindedness (reverence for God’s creations and our stewardship over them), Planning ahead, disposing of waste properly, Leaving what you find (and even cleaning up other’s traces), minimizing camping and campfire impacts, respect for wildlife (God’s creations, our stewardship), Consideration for Others. And, the list could continue if I went into things taught while learning skills through merit badges and rank advancement.
And, as leaders, we try to deliver all of that with FUN. But, not fun alone; FUN with a purpose.
As a homeschool father, I want my children to grow with all of these attributes, and more. I will use ANY and ALL tools I can to accomplish this. As a Scouter, I know that FUN can be a very valuable tool for teaching. Not Fun alone. Not fun for the sake of fun. Fun with a Purpose.
Fun can be the “spoonful of sugar”. Fun without purpose is sugar without medicine. Fun with Purpose “helps the medicine go down”.
I hear my children upstairs right now with their mother having timed multiplication table races. I can tell by the noise level they are having fun.
-Joe
Thanks, Brett. I agree.
Joe, I don’t disagree with you, but I think we are talking about two different things. We use the word “fun” as a somewhat slang term to encompass anything amusing or enjoyable. I would have said in high school that writing research papers was “fun” but not fun in the same sense as going to an amusement park. That is because I found the task interesting, challenging and overall enjoyable.
The point of my post certainly isn’t that all of education need be dull and that students cannot enjoy it. It is that there is a deeper satisfaction from being faced with a challenge and overcoming it. Our culture is so used to passive entertainment that it is getting more difficult to encourage children to really apply themselves.
Our classrooms are trying to compete with television and video games. The result is cable tv in the classroom and Lightspan, a video game series to teach basic reading skills.
My daughter loves her math…she loves working with the manipulatives and using what she knows to solve problems. Some might say she is having “fun” but I think it would be more accurate to say that she is enjoying learning because it is active and meaningful.
I would say the same about scouting. And giggling while learning the multiplication tables. Because that isn’t “vulgar merriment.”
As Brett pointed out, students gain more confidence and enjoy the subject more as they meet the challenges of the subject. Not everything has to be framed in the context of a game…and believe me, we play a lot of games to emphasize basic skills. I have nothing wrong with that…and I have nothing wrong with some of the activities which probably come more from the “vulgar merriment” sort…so long as they are in context and not driving the curriculum.