“People rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun in what they are doing.” - Dale Carnegie

When I think back to my own education, I remember learning about environmental science through trips to the regional parks every other year, writing through creative lessons driven by my own stories in middle school, money and stocks through a classroom “Monopoly money” system in 6th grade, and politics through a semester-long role play in high school. This learning was meaningful, fun, and rooted in my community. It helped me grow as a learner and it helped me grow as a person. It was joyous.

Hopefully you can also recall a joyful learning experience. Maybe it was the time a teacher took you under her wing to learn something, or when you worked hard with your friends to get the dance just right for the talent show. Maybe it was the time you worked with your teammates to prepare for an upcoming tournament or when you worked with your class to raise money to support the New Orleans community after Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, most of us have also had boring school experiences that stunted learning - hundreds of hours of teachers droning on in lecture mode, hundreds more hours of worksheets that lead nowhere, and textbooks with thousands of pages of dumbed-down material.