Fun Learning
Your 2005 Ford Mondeo groans slightly as you pull up to work. You’ve been told there’s going to be an office-wide meeting today, something about learning a system. You’re silently dreading it. Why do you need to learn anything new? What’s wrong with what you know already? You adjust your coat and head inside…
Brian introduces the representatives of this new system, pale geeks in unironed shirts. They nervously tell you the history of their product, but you’re not listening. At the front of the room, the reason for this gathering, a PowerPoint. You are awoken by the pathetic clapping of the group as it’s apparently over. Chris, the slimy little weasel, gives you a smug look as he gets up.
“Everything you need to know’s in there!” says Brian, cheerfully shooing you all out.
You open the PowerPoint, now at the comfort of your desk…and a part of your soul immediately dies. 100 slides, 8 point font and not a picture to be seen. You can’t learn anything from this…you’ve had comas more engaging than this. You look around. Everyone else seems to have the same idea…
F**k it. You don’t need that manual. You’ll get the grips of it by yourself, learning on the job. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen…
10:38 AM, 10th APRIL 2021 – The ‘Incident’
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Having fun while learning is one of the most important things for a happy and satisfying life. The problem is a lot of people don’t find learning fun. And it’s not their fault. Learning has been dictated by test scores and spreadsheets for the better part of a century, leading many to despise the concept in general. You give someone a big, dry book to learn or literally anything else, most people are going to choose the anything else.
In a workspace, it’s vital that employees are not only finding learning fun but are encouraged to do so. Fear of failure and repercussions is one of the biggest barriers that make people scared to learn, drilled into us from years of strict teachers and regimented lesson plans when really all we want to be doing from the years 4-12 is eating worms.
The first thing then that employers must do to make their businesses a fun, learning environment is to erase these psychic blockades of fear. Let your employees fail, try again, fail some more. If you are a person who needs perfection and provides notes for everyone’s ideas, could you just not be? Failure is the biggest teacher and breeds creativity after all. Throwing a million ideas to the wall to see what sticks is a much better method than shooting them down to see which one can take the most bullet points.
Not that we have unlearned our trauma from school, the next step for making learning in the workplace fun is accommodating different types of learning. You see, not everyone is built the same. Shocking, I know. People learn in different ways at different speeds. Some people can’t listen for shit but have amazing specialist skills with their hands, able to do and create incredible works, but because of the primary ‘educational’ methods we have through our society these people are labelled as ‘lost causes’ and prohibited into higher education. It’d be like trying to make beached whales run a marathon. Of course they can’t do it, you need to put em in the water! Sorry, rant over. But the point is that workplaces have to make sure
learning is fun and accessible. Not everyone grew up a little swat who took immense pleasure from being the fastest reader in their class. Providing a varied way to let people’s unique talents shine through let’s all your employees learn at their own pace, as after all, fun’s only fun when everyone’s involved.
Lastly, another important proponent of fun learning (I call it flearning) is engagement. This can be done in a variety of wacky and sitcom-esque ways, but the simplest method is often just a change in scenery. So put down that number for clown hire. Or don’t. Simply changing from holding a lesson or meeting in a grey office to a bar or restaurant can immediately change people’s attitudes to how they receive information. Humans are naturally nomadic, they want to go to new places. That’s when our brains are at their peaks.
Keeping an office both fun and a great place to learn can often be a difficult line to walk, like Harrison Ford running on that blade (I don’t know I’ve never seen it.), but as long as you inspire to learn and make sure everyone can, the fun comes naturally, so just…have fun with it!