"Joyful Experience" Photo created by ChatGPT
I smile every time I watch Alysa Liu's skating performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics. In 2022, Alysa retired from elite figure skating competition where every move and jump is judged, where mistakes mean lower scores, and the pressure to perform is intense. When Alysa returned to the ice after a two-year hiatus, she made it clear that she was no longer performing to satisfy a scoring system. She was skating because she loved skating. And guess what? That did not make her worse; it made her freer, And freedom made room for excellence and her pure joy while performing.
School once worked the same way. Children entered kindergarten as curious explorers, full of joy, trying new ideas, learning to work together with others, discovering a whole new world, not afraid to fail and try again. We encouraged them to ask questions and guided them to find answers. We taught them that failure was an opportunity to not give up and to maybe make a minor adjustment. We encouraged them to keep going and celebrated when they were successful. We exposed children to exciting new experiences through books, music, art, science, and play - blocks, house corner, books, math games, puzzles, nature walks, and so much more. Learning was joyful!
Unfortunately, we've replaced children’s natural curiosity with a culture that emphasizes grade level standards, high-stakes testing, Advanced Placement classes, and grade point averages. By standardizing education and focusing on improving test scores, we have ignored what makes students special: their strengths and challenges, their interests, their individuality and the experiences that make them unique. As educators, we should be building on the strengths of our students so they feel like essential members of their classroom community. Assessment was originally meant to measure learning, but that is no longer the case. In many schools and classrooms today, assessment directs learning. The saying is that "what gets tested gets taught."
Ask any adult this question: What do you remember from your school days? Their memories might include a field trip they took, or a special teacher, or a musical performance, or the friendships that lasted a lifetime. I doubt that anyone would mention a standardized test or a worksheet or their grade point average. And yet, we treat the most memorable things - the joy for many students - as "enrichment" and spend most of our time in school on "essentials." We have it backwards. We would have more engaged students if we focused less attention on the test-taking culture that dominates many schools.
Joy in learning is social before it is intellectual. Students engage when they feel known, when teachers notice them, when peers depend on them, when communities need them. Students have many opportunities to make a difference. They can tutor younger students; they can help out at school events or volunteer in their community; they can even influence public policy by testifying at their City Council or State Legislature. The purpose of school was never to produce high test scores. Rather, it is to help our young people to find their purpose in life. A community does not thrive because their students shad high scores on tests. It thrives because students found a passion and give back to their community.
There is a ray of hope: many schools are choosing to focus on engaging students through strategies such as project-based learning, Socratic seminars, children-as-authors, choice boards, math talks and a focus on problem-solving, creating murals that share aspects of their school history, and community internships. Rather than focusing on standardized test-taking skills, these students are learning real-world skills by creating, collaborating, thinking critically, and communicating with others to address real-world problems that will impact them now and in the future.
School should be a joyful place; don't we want students (and teachers) to look forward to coming to school? We can all learn from Alysa Liu's Olympics experience where she valued the process of improving. School should be more like the practice rink, a place to fall safely and to get up and try again. When students are judged every time they get an assignment, they will learn to not take chances. If we want students to be confident adults and thoughtful citizens, we need them to find joy in the learning process. This means they will sometimes fall and fail, but they can pick themselves up and try again. Schools should be a safe place in a chld's life to try something challenging and difficult. And when learning is practice instead of performance, achievement and joy follow. And don't we believe that school should be a joyful place?
