MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

If I were to name one class that I remembered the most, I would have to choose English.

Sure, what we learnt isn’t exactly the most extraordinary information, but what we, the students, did in that class was truly something to be remembered.

The atmosphere for that class was a lighthearted one, and jokes were thrown around constantly. Everyone’s mood were high and it was a real picker-upper no matter what kind of day you were having. Sure, no one could recite Macbeth right now, but we would all remember when Russel entered the room without a shirt, or when Andy gave his . . . um, speech. This lead to us linking certain events to what we were doing, for example, we were talking about the ramification of cars in The Kite Runner before the Russel incident, and Andy’s speech was on euphemisms.

I found that the thing that clicked for me in that class was how the teacher consistently grabbed my attention the same way a form of entertainment would, and somehow weaved education into it. In that class, education seemed to be a secondary objective, and the primary was to have fun.

I realize that this can’t be done with many other classes, mostly due to the nature of the other subjects, but having something that constantly pokes your brain’s funny bone would really work. Everyone remembers the time their best friend slipped and fell, but no one remembers pi to the 10th digit. However, if your best friend fell while reciting the first 10 digits of pi, there’s no way you’ll ever forget it.

While teaching others, this will be very helpful as well. Entertain them, give them a dinner AND a show. Make it memorable, don’t just read from a crammed PowerPoint. Give them the time of their lives, and they’ll owe it all to you.

Besides, our brain makes billions of connections a day, why not connect education with entertainment?