Work and fun- they seem like opposites, don’t they? The way we think separates these two into mutually exclusive poles. I know that if we scratch the surface even a little bit, we find that it isn’t true. We know that you can enjoy working, and the luckiest of us love our jobs, and we know that loving something that is good for you is the best option, but, even then, we want it to be one thing or the other. Either, it’s not really work because you enjoy it – ‘I never worked a day in my life! I love my job too much!’ Or enjoying something is a way of getting the useful thing done – ‘If the children enjoy learning, then in every lesson they will behave and will progress.’ But why do we need to think like this?

The truth is, everything worth doing, that makes our lives mean something, takes effort and is pleasurable. If we want to sip the pleasure without making the effort, we will never achieve the value. If we believe we can only reach the goal by hard, serious work without loving what we do, then, not only will the joy of life be diminished, but it is likely that the result will not be as worthwhile. I’m sure we can all think of examples of both.

You could take this as a maxim for relationships, for work, for education. If you want only fun and don’t expect and accept difficult times and hard work in a long-term relationship, be that with a partner, a parent, a child or a friend, then your relationship is going to fail. If there is only an earnest ethic of work in your learning, it will be hard to persevere. As this is a reading and education blog, I will focus of educational examples, but I think it could be said to be true in all aspects of life. If a student wants to have fun, and exclusively do that, then they will not develop as they should academically. If a teacher focuses too hard on the work and not hard enough on the enjoyment, then no one will want to even begin to learn.

Normally, when we are talking about our own activities we want to have as much fun as possible. But there is an inescapable idea, in all walks of life, but particularly in education, that without miserable and stony-faced hard work, the results are not worth having. There is also an insidious idea that pleasure is the route to all things, and if only we can make things fun, all is achievable. It may be boring and middle of the road, but there needs to be balance in all things, this included. I have sat in meetings listening to the theory that behaviour problems in the classroom stem almost exclusively from the lack of ‘engagement’ provided in the lessons. ‘Engagement’ here means fun. Nonsense, obviously. As an NQT, that made me feel a failure  – ‘Not only am I unable to control my class, but I’m boring too!’. But I hope we all know that behaviour management is as much about school based structures, school-led expectations, personal relationships with students, routines, environment and a host of other things, as much as it is about ‘engagement’. Fun is not the answer to everything. On the other end of the scale, once out of primary, teachers feel they can’t read to classes, have library lessons, take time to do book reviews or talk about reading in class, except as a ‘fun’ lesson which has no true value in the great scheme of things. Activities which develop relationships between students, improve group work, develop confidence, give a sense of belonging – these are not given space in our schools. They are seen as frivolous and must take a poor second place to slogging through the SQI/PEE paragraphs or learning your times-tables. All this is because playing games, listening to students debate and giving time to work that does not lead to exam excellence is seen as ‘fun’ not serious work.

I’m probably preaching to the choir here. You’re probably thinking, ‘This is obvious, surely!’ But sadly, in everyday ways, in schools throughout the country, we are alternately relying too heavily on ‘fun’ to trick the students into doing their work, like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, or we are excluding meaningful and valuable parts of learning because they have no countable value and so are frivolous. Is it completely fanciful to imagine that we can encourage students to value their work, not hiding that it can be hard sometimes, but add an element of enjoyment into the proceedings? In fact, it shouldn’t need to be added, because, if we can but be induced to admit it, work can be fun. Intrinsically. Not an added piece of ‘sugar’ to coat the bitter pill, but because work and fun are fundamentally linked.