The more Anna Van Renen researched lifelong learning for our upcoming publication, the more she realised that for a lot of people, learning isn’t fun. It made her reflect on her own experiences of school, bad experiences that many of us have been through at some point or another. And it also made her reflect on how learning could be made fun again

I’m bad at maths. Really bad. I can’t do times tables, I get confused calculating tip at a restaurant, and I struggle to figure out simple subtraction sums. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and it never has. I didn’t have great support for maths in school. In fact, I have vivid memories of my year 1 teacher calling me unintelligent because I couldn’t understand clocks. (These were the sort of lifechanging topics you were expected to grasp in year 1, after all.) I sort of scraped by until I could stop doing it, and as soon as I stopped, I never looked back. I have no intention of studying mathematics ever again.

Learning isn’t always easy. It’s not always fun or exciting. Sometimes, we’re stuck learning things we hate. Sometimes, our instructors are not supportive. Sometimes, learning difficulties like dyslexia make it harder. Sometimes, it’s the social situation that makes learning unpleasant. Whatever might cause someone to dislike the learning process, or learning a specific topic, it usually sticks with us. No matter our age or level of ability, poor learning experiences can create a sense of shame and a lack of confidence and self-esteem which may demotivate us from learning again.

As we ask more and more adults to upskill and reskill, it’s vital to remember that confidence and self-esteem are one of the biggest factors of success in learning. So, how can we encourage learning when so many of us have tainted experiences?

Perhaps most obviously and generally, a topic that interests someone would certainly be more enjoyable to learn. Some of the most successful corporate programmes I’ve been researching use ‘enjoyment’ as an indicator to test the success of their training programmes. The concept of ‘edutainment’ also comes into play here – the idea of education with specific entertainment components.

But to really appeal to individual learners, I believe the answer is personalisation. Learning programmes work best when they’re catered to the individual partaking in them. For example, if I were to ever learn maths again, I wouldn’t be able to do it in a classroom setting, a setting that reminds me of struggling with content and being called unintelligent. For someone else, a classroom setting is the best way to learn. For others still, a hybrid approach might be best. It all depends on the person. Individualisation of other aspects in learning is also important. Not everyone has the same goals when learning, so individual measures of success are incredibly important to good learning programmes. These measures also help create personalised content based on an individual’s aims and interests. An understanding of people’s prior knowledge can help make a programme more relevant, rewarding and enjoyable, too. After all, learning isn’t really about the curriculum or knowledge. It’s about the person.

An individualised approach is the best way to motivate people and make learning fun again, especially for those who may feel some apprehension towards continuous education or struggle with low self-esteem and confidence. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works, and it’s time for us to move away from it when we think about lifelong learning.