all about fun
Published July 14, 2008 | 
As a sea kayaking coach I’ve been in a lot of conversations about fun and play. Discussions range from excitement to enlightenment to disgust. Let’s face it, some people wouldn’t know “fun” if it came up and bit them on the bum. Some I’m sure have just forgotten what fun is. They are just living in the skin of Mr. Banks waiting for Mary Poppins to roll in. Others have had fun just stripped away forcefully by all the evils of the world. Some feel too mature for fun, thinking “fun” is something kids do like “pretending” and “play”. The conflict over fun and play as a coaching tool often spins around a personal world view, not conceptual understanding. The problem is when one who disdains fun as a learning tool grudgingly accepts that “fun” IS a learning tool because the powers that be tell them so. Now what?
I know one thing. If I’m in a class where the instructor opens some kitsch phrase like, “I’m all about fun” or dead pans that we are “going to have fun” while forcing a Christina Ricci smile, odds become around 50-50 that we will actually have “fun”. We may. It’s hard to tell. But if we do it’s often organic and not exactly as intended. It just happens. You can’t make it happen. You can’t tell people to prepare for it. You can’t “power phrase” it because you learned fun was important in some workshop. You certainly can’t be “all about fun” while being disturbed at the kids class next to you. Learning is fun. Play is fun. Coaching can be fun depending on how one views coaching.
All sea kayak instructors of course understand the seriousness of what they are teaching. They understand the outlines and the skills. Most realize that we are sending our students out into a possibly dangerous world with only their skills and judgment to protect them. We get it. For some this stark reality combined with some personality quirks means that classes must be very serious. Everything must have a list and a proper name. Everything is done “just so”. For these folks anything else but discipline is a foolish waste of time and is not “teaching” at all. Fun is just irresponsible. Play without obvious structure is foolishness and yet we know, or at least are told that play is an important teaching tool.
This is the cauldron in which corporate team building retreats are forged. We know fun and play are paramount to creativity and learning, we just don’t know how to get there. Thing is, to have fun succeed you have to understand why it works in a real way. Not just as an unemotional bullet point. Fun is nothing if not emotional. Fun is a feeling, not a stupid camp song or lame game. Fun is the drug that cures the ills. It sooths the fears and softens the bad experiences. Fun takes you places you’d never go otherwise. Fun is an instigator. Fun is that hand behind the curtain beckoning you in with just one long red fingernail. Fun is temptation and self-gratification. Fun is a victory not over others, but over one’s own limitations. Fun is accidental & transcendental learning. Fun is a translator. Fun is a salve, and of course. . . fun just is. Immersed in fun a student is no longer fat or thin or tall or short. They are not accountants, web developers, reporters or therapists. They are free thoughts roaming through experiences detached and yet saturated. Fun teaches through stealth. The lessons do not need to be explained or wrapped up, just learned. You can’t put fun in the “instructor’s tool box”. It has to go in the back pocket with sticky sucker and wilting dandelion. Fun is tracking mud across the living room floor.
Of course this is all well and good but maybe a bit ethereal. It’s not. “Fun” is actually a lesson plan. While some see a class of nothing but unstructured mayhem, what they may miss is the amount of thought that goes into it. “Crazy” coaches and the more restrained types don’t always talk about it. It’s like religion or politics. We tend to hang with our own crowds. We just don’t want to stir it up. Still though, it may be worth a little discussion about what the silliness is all about. . . next post. .
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