Learning something new triggers a chemical release of dopamine. Dopamine is famous among neuroscientists for its involvement in the reward and motivation systems of the brain. This electro-chemical connection means we are designed to find learning fun.
If your son finds something fun, he is much more likely to learn, engage and retain the information he has been taught. Here is why educators and parents should make learning fun to make better learners:
Trial and error: Learning is fun when errors don’t feel like failures. The process of trial and error allows your son to repeat successes and learn from errors, getting ever closer to the desired result.
Meaning: When your son is fully engaged in a pursuit that is meaningful to him, he loses sense of time, discomfort, and even self.
Discovery and exploration: Discovery is highly motivating, exciting and ignites curiosity. It lures babies to put everything into their mouths. It propels us to try new music, look around forbidden corners and travel to distant places.
Novelty: What is new and unexpected heightens attention and activates all kinds of interest. Children are known as risk taskers and are propelled by their natural inquisitiveness.
Play: Play isn’t just for fun. It’s an essential component of learning. Children engage fully with learning when they thoroughly enjoy what they are doing and have fun. Often, they do not realise they are learning.
Direct experience: Hands-on learning and the act of doing, rather than just watching, allows for experimentation. In subjects like Science, direct experience makes learning come alive with pleasure and satisfaction.
Challenge: Challenges are fun as well as educational because they keep us right at the edge of our competence, pushing us on to the next level, which is why video games are so compelling.
At Christ Church, boys journey through the phases of Learning, designed to motivate them to discover and realise the best in themselves and others by making learning enjoyable. Download our Prospectus to learn more.
