This week some students, independently and across the years, introduced me to the novel idea that education should be “enjoyable” and “fun”. Furthermore, if it wasn’t enjoyable, it wasn’t being done right. Given Criminology’s subject matter is often grim, dark, focusing on the worst aspects of humankind, enjoyable and fun are not descriptions that often appear in relation to the discipline. Certainly, such a perspective is not one that I personally recognise; a day at an art gallery, playing Hungry Hippos with two little people, a nice bottle of wine, lunch with friends, building a Lego Yellow Submarine etc are things that I would say are enjoyable, perhaps even fun. But education……I’m not convinced! What follows are my vague ramblings around a subject which is very close to my heart (you are warned!).

All of the enjoyable activities I have described above are ones that I spend very little of my time doing and that to me, is part of their enjoyability (if such a word exists). They are attractive because they are rare and unusual, in my life at least. But education, learning, knowledge are part and parcel of my everyday existence, and dare I say fundamental to who am I. However, does any of this preclude education from being fun? Maybe, I just take for granted my thirst for knowledge in the same way as my thirst for water, just everyday appetites that need to be fed to maintain equilibrium and optimal performance.

I love considering new ideas and new perspectives, particularly if they challenge my thinking and jolt me out of complacency, so I want to consider this concept of enjoyable education.  I’ve always been a curious person, there’s lots of questions that I want to know the answer to and they generally begin with “why”? Like all children, I expect I drove my parents mad with the constant questions; never fully satisfied with the answer. I can trace my first early, tentative steps into criminological thinking to when I was a child and regularly had to pass HMP Holloway[1] on the way to various hospital appointments. I used to wonder who lived in this huge, forbidding building, why they were there, what had they done, when would they get out and where would they go? Some decades on, I have answers to some of those questions but I’m still actively searching for the others. This, of course, is experiential learning and children’s books (at that time) offered little by way of answers to such profound criminological questions.

At school, the type of learning I liked best was when I could explore for myself. An experienced and knowledgeable teacher or lecturer explaining complex ideas could open the door so far, but I wanted to find out for myself as much as possible. For me, the best educationalists are those that gently guide and enable, not those who deliver information on demand. They also engender self-confidence and self-discipline encouraging the scholar to take control of their own intellectual journey. All of this leads me to the conclusion that learning is intrinsically neither enjoyable nor fun, although both may be by-products.  Education, knowledge, learning, all of these are painful, challenging, at times they appear almost impossible. But! The level of personal satisfaction, achievement and growth means that ‘some kind of happiness is’, not as the Beatles suggest ‘measured out in miles’, but through  intellectual endeavour (Lennon and McCartney, 1969). And to answer the essay question I set in the title, Lego has many charms but independent, self-direction is not one of them. Provided you follow the step-by-step illustrated instructions you will have your very own Yellow Submarine, but there are no surprises, whether positive or negative, which means I have no intellectual investment in the process. Furthermore, take the instructions away and I would not be able to recreate this “masterpiece”. Having said that, it does look rather lovely on my book case 🙂

Lennon, John and McCartney, Paul, (1969), Hey Bulldog, [LP]. Recorded by The Beatles in Yellow Submarine, Northern Songs: Apple

[1] HMP Holloway closed its doors for the final time in July 2016.