What’s fun got to do with it?

Love or fun, which is it? Choose, I’m serious. You can’t have both, at least not during the commencement of knowledge.

To awaken, to enliven, to love learning, paradoxically, you must start with fun. It’s the fun experience in life or in the classroom, bricks and mortar or virtual, that excites, inspires, and develops abilities and creativity that progress into a love for learning.

So much of love is emotional and intellectual immaturity. Look at lovers. Their minds are withdrawn. Their behaviour is uncontrolled. Decisions are rootless. It’s a relationship of verbal, psychological, and mental chaos wherein life and priorities are self-centered.

Fun, on the other hand, requires a focused mindset that exploits a given opportunity to its maximum. It avoids the mundane. It doesn’t require you to walk on egg shells. It introduces you to a new skill. It provides you with something that you look forward to doing.

You are the greatest determinant of the level of fun in learning. Do you take interest in the content, right down to the smallest detail? Do you pay attention and participate? Most importantly, do you ask solid questions to clarify and enhance your understanding?

Don’t take it to heart. Don’t let my fanciful dichotomy trip you up. Let’s agree that love doesn’t uncork learning. Fun does. Fun even strengthens love. Agree?