Joy in School

Stephen Wolk ("Joy in School") charges that schools unwittingly take the joy out of learning for many kids. He quotes John Goodlad's 1984 assertion that "Boredom is a disease of epidemic proportions . . . Why are our schools not places of joy?"

What's your answer to Goodlad's question? What can educators do to "increase the joy" in school?

The September 2008 issue of Educational Leadership (themed "The Positive Classroom") is available online.

Comments

[Judy Willis, MD]

This is certainly a critical time when politicians are more likely to attend to education specialists when planning election year platforms. Steven Wolk’s article should be mandatory campaign reading. In the summer 2007 Educational Leadership published my article, The Neuroscience of Joyful Education, Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed. As a neurologist and classroom teacher I search the neuroscience and cognitive science research to find strategies I consider “neuro-LOGICAL” to achieve the goals we share that are so well described by Steven Wolk.

Most children, I noted in that article, can't wait to start kindergarten and approach the beginning of school with awe and anticipation. Kindergartners and 1st graders often talk passionately about what they learn and do in school. Unfortunately, the current emphasis on standardized testing and rote learning encroaches upon many students' joy. In their zeal to raise test scores, too many policymakers wrongly assume that students who are laughing, interacting in groups, or being creative with art, music, or dance are not doing real academic work. The result is that some teachers feel pressure to preside over more sedate classrooms with students on the same page in the same book, sitting in straight rows, facing straight ahead.

The truth is that when we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged. They ultimately learn to feel bad about school and lose the joy they once felt.

Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain. There are physiological benefits of joy in the classroom. When students are engaged, motivated, and not over stressed information flows freely through the Reticular Activating System filter in the brain stem and the affective filter in the amygdala. This is when they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience “aha” moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery.

Superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are enjoyable and relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences. In these classrooms the conditions favor the passage of sensory input (new learning) through brain filters to the REFLECTIVE brain (prefrontal cortex) instead of to the automatic, fight/flight/freeze REACTIVE brain. The associated increase in dopamine and acetylcholine then favor the consolidation of the new information with prior knowledge as relational memories are encoded in the hippocampus. Students who are engaged and joyful are also more likely to remember and understand what they learn when they have opportunities for learning through their strengths and are intrinsically motivated by meaningful goals and achievable challenge. In addition, when students have some choices in the ways they will study or how they will connect with a topic of study their motivation increases and stress diminishes. They are more accepting of their errors, less self-conscious about asking questions, and motivated to try again.

When we use strategies to reduce stress and build a positive emotional environment, students gain resilience, learn more efficiently, and process information at higher levels of cognition. Classrooms become safe havens when academic practices and classroom strategies incorporate student emotional comfort and joy with learning.

I invite you to visit my website www.RADTeach.com for more information about classroom strategies and the neuroscience of joyful education.

[Laura Varlas]

School librarian and blogger, Katie, relates most to Joy #8: Read Good Books.