Making lessons too enjoyable can inhibit learning, new report claims

When I was training to be a teacher back in the late 1980`s we were all told that we had to make lessons fun. Children learn through playing, so the new psychology said, and we had to incorporate playtime into the classroom. Make a game out of your teaching, and the kids won`t realise they are being taught! Make every class activity a fun activity!

It now seems that this advice was lacking in any sound factual basis. The Centre for Education Economics (CfEE) has just published a report that states the old adage, that children have to be happy in order to learn, is not true. All those long years of making up funny stories, and drawing comical diagrams on the black board to teach algebra, I thought as I digested this revelation.

The report, entitled `The achievement-wellbeing trade-off in education` makes a strong claim that old fashioned ways of teaching, while not being as enjoyable for the pupil, actually yield better results in the classroom. Some of these old fashioned techniques include `instruction,` where the teacher simply stands at the front of the classroom, delivering information, perhaps by reading a textbook, or working at the whiteboard. Another traditional technique has the rather daunting sounding name `drilling,` and relates to memorisation practices, with the pupils repeating words or phrases uttered by the teacher.

The report makes it clear how important these methods of teaching are, explaining how they`re `crucial for successful learning` because they allow pupils to transfer information from their working memory to their long-term memory, while conceding they may be `neither fun nor inspiring.`

When I was training to be a teacher the profession was starting to turn against such old fashioned methods: they were pejoratively classified as `teacher-centred,` and we were informed that this style of education was inefficient, and could even intimidate children. In the 1960`s and 1970`s a huge reactionary movement against this style of teaching had begun - the result being a more child-centred learning, which claimed a strong correlation between pupils` enjoyment and wellbeing and their learning potential.

One feature of this new teaching technique was to suggest children learn from each other, to ask them to work in small groups, where they would be encouraged to discuss parts of the lesson, and express their opinions. Some of my colleagues joked that we were delegating the role of the teacher to the pupils themselves, but I could see the benefit of this particular method. Hearing children debate with their colleagues about what parts of the lesson meant to them showed that they were taking a personal stance towards the recently imparted knowledge, using their imagination and expressing what it meant to them. My opinion was that this could only help them remember and comprehend what they had just been taught. It also allowed them to learn at a pace that suited them, while making discoveries about the subject together, without my active intervention or assistance.

The new study from The Centre for Education Economics however opposes this style of teaching, favouring instead the stricter `teacher-centred` method, which it claims produces better results in the classroom. Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, and the author of the report has said, somewhat contentiously some might say, that the idea of pupils wellbeing going hand in hand with their achievement in schools is false, and that this erroneous correlation has become `deeply entrenched` in most schools.

`It is still commonly believed that it is necessary to make learning `invigorating` for learning to take place at all… these progressive ideals regarding pupil enjoyment are an important reason why modern educationalists historically have supported pupil-centred teaching methods.`

Even prior to the publication of this report there have been many prominent figures in the education sector who agreed with its contents. The former head of Ofsted Michael Wilshaw has said that child-centred learning is deeply flawed, and has damaged the education of generations of pupils. My own opinion is that there needs to be a balance between the two methods of teaching - I don`t believe it`s necessary for every lesson to be full of laughter and serenity, with various groups of children chattering amongst themselves discussing the teachings; but nor do I favour an overly strict authoritarian approach, where pupils may be too intimidated to ask for assistance.