The right way to approach learning through play: Design for learning, deliver for play

BySCMP Events

Reading Time:3 minutes

While delivering curriculum, always start with an expansive fun-first experience. Photo from King of Hong Kong, a journalism program for ages 8-11.

Published: 5:56pm, 20 Apr 2022

by Vince Siu, Founder and CEO, Press Start Academy

“Life is about the journey, not the destination.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson was talking about life in general, but nowhere does his famous quote apply more aptly than in the field of education.

The current discourse on the Future of Work emphasises “21st-century” soft skills such as creativity and collaboration. With this continued evolution in the nature of work, academic destinations – grades, then university placements and finally job titles – can’t and shouldn’t be the overriding focus of education anymore.

The journey of education is going to be just as important as the destination, and that journey is going to become radically different as it takes on the dual role of training us in skills both hard and soft.

School was once synonymous with rote learning, and excellence with encyclopaedic recollection, so it made logical sense that academic achievement was associated with spending more time on our studies. The first half of the oft-quoted Chinese proverb “勤有功，戲無益” (literally: diligence leads to success, play is frivolous) is rooted in this sensibility, and has some merit when it comes to grade-based destinations.

It is no longer that world: Students now have vast swathes of information at their fingertips, and accordingly teachers are evolving from oracles delivering truths and instructing knowledge, to facilitators helping them process data and structure their understanding.