Teaching as performance and Edutainment

Teaching is viewed by some as an art form, something of a performance given by teachers who take their place on the ‘stage’. King (1993: p.30) proposed that if teaching is to progress then teachers must become a ‘guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage’. King refers to teaching as facilitating learning and advocates a constructivist approach in which students are encouraged to use their existing knowledge and prior experience to help construct new

understandings. Likening teaching to ‘giving a performance’ was not an area I set out to address explicitly in my data collection, however it was commented on by a few of the interviewees and I also commented on it during my

observations. In some of my observations, the teacher was a larger than life character who dominated the room, whereas in other instances the lecturer was quieter and more introverted in their approach.

Some lecturers said that teaching is a performance where they must assume another identity or at least become a magnified version of their own self:

“I do want the students to have a good time in the class and I want them to enjoy what they are doing. Teaching is a bit of a performance you are a

performer … it’s a bit of an art form sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong.” (Interview with Spanish and adult education lecturer,

Glasgow)

This Spanish and adult education lecturer appears to equate students enjoying their learning with the notion of lecturers giving a good performance. Moreover, the biology lecturer I interviewed suggested that entertainment in the classroom is not necessarily a bad thing and can inspire learners:

“I think if you have a lecturer who is an entertainer and who can suck you in you are more likely to remember things because you are interested in it. You can be interested in a subject and you can have someone who has the

personality of drying paint and suddenly you think ‘I have just wasted an hour of my life’. Or you could have somebody who is an inspiration and you think wow! I had no idea that you could do that I want to go and find out more.”

(Interview with biology lecturer, Glasgow)

It could be suggested that if a teacher has a charismatic personality, then somehow they are a better teacher. Buskist et al. (2002) developed a ‘Teacher Behaviours Checklist’ (TBC) which consisted of twenty eight qualities and behaviours of ‘master teachers’, two of which were the qualities of creativity and enthusiasm. Although creativity and enthusiasm do not equate to giving a performance, a teacher’s personality and charisma may influence how good a teacher they are perceived to be.

Contrary to this however, Marsh and Ware’s (1982) study (known as the Dr Fox effect) suggested that if a learner is intrinsically motivated then the teacher’s behaviour and performance has little bearing on their ability to learn

successfully. One student focus group pointed out that they thought teacher performance does not always equate to the best learning:

“I don’t think it has to be fun because I think people enjoy things so much themselves that they will want to do it anyway, but it [the learning and teaching] has to be varied because people learn in different ways…if you are really interested in something you might be enjoying yourself without leaping about.” (Student focus group, Spanish students, Glasgow)

These Spanish students seem to believe that enjoying learning is really up to them and ‘enjoyment’ cannot be forced upon them by the teacher. Innovative teaching may be rendered useless unless the students are intrinsically motivated to engage. One student in the Spanish students’ focus group mentioned ‘leaping about’ which was also a phrase used by the archaeology lecturer I interviewed in Glasgow. This phrase is very revealing because it appears that, for some, active learning is perceived to be frivolous or it could signify the distrust of activities which devalue the content of the learning.

Within Setzer and Monke’s (2001) theory of edutainment, the ‘edu’ part of edutainment may always be a constant e.g. the substance and quality of what is taught never changes, however the ‘tainment’ part of edutainment could take the form of the teacher’s individual performance or the activities and methods that they choose in the attempt to maximise interest without sacrificing

substance. The theory of edutainment suggests that there can sometimes be a merging of what some may consider more serious learning with fun and

enjoyable aspects. Whether or not ‘real’ learning and ‘fun’ learning are mutually exclusive is debatable; however, for the purpose of this research investigating active learning, edutainment is a useful term to explore. Active learning could be perceived as a strand of edutainment because it is often portrayed as a diluted form of ‘real’ learning in that emphasis is put on the lecturer’s performance and the learning activities rather than the substance and content of a given subject. Having read the edutainment literature I kept this in mind during my observations.

I noted in my observation of a sociology lecture in Ghana:

‘This was a two hour lecture and the teacher looked exhausted when he finished. It felt like a performance, his voice had to be very loud and

commanding to fill the large lecture hall … He gave a lot of personal opinions about corruption and the way in which the Ghanaian government deals with it.

It felt very much like his ‘show’.’ (Observer notes, sociology lecture, Ghana)

In my opinion, the lecturer in the sociology lecture in Ghana performed a

monologue for most of the session. Although this may not be uncommon in most traditional lecturing environments, there did seem to be an air of drama which was in the room. The lecturer seemed to use grandiose statements about moral corruption in Africa to get the students’ attention and his tone of voice rose and fell in a very dramatic fashion.

There were many examples from my research data that suggested teaching was considered to be a performance. In helping define active learning, it is

important to consider where the focus of the teaching rests. For example if the teacher concentrates on giving a good performance, the learners may feel they are spectators rather than participants in their learning. However, the

performance aspect of teaching may be enjoyable for both teacher and learner and a good performance may result in deep or active learning on the part of the student.