The Joy of Learning in the 21st Century

The beauty of learning lies in discovering, enjoying its process, experiencing, experimenting, and most importantly smelling the sweet odour of success. Unfortunately, the majority of learners are not scenting this gladness and gaiety in learning. Learners have always been regarded as a machine that should acquire the required knowledge and skills in order to obtain good marks and paper qualifications rather than learning for the sake of learning itself and self-development. Their wants, necessities and lacks are rarely taken into consideration especially in marks-based educational systems.  From another angle, this artificial intelligence dependent aeon comes with its new illusionary demands and deficiencies. In this perspective, nowadays learners need not only learning that provides them with knowledge, skills and digital-based requirements but also gives them an opportunity to enjoy the whole process. 

The 21^st century skills are a large spectrum of competencies that nowadays students need to develop and hone in order to become glocal citizens. Along the same vein, Zhoa (2009) defines this term in relation to globalization, he states, “since citizens must be able to competently negotiate cultural differences, manage multiple identities, comfortably interact with people from different cultures, and confidently move across cultures as well as the virtual and physical worlds” (p. 192).  In essence,

It should be noted that the “21^st century skills” concept encompasses a wide-ranging and amorphous body of knowledge and skills that is not easy to define and that has not been officially codified or categorized. While the term is widely used in education, it is not always defined consistently, which can lead to confusion and divergent interpretations. In addition, a number of related terms—including applied skills, cross-curricular skills, cross-disciplinary skills, interdisciplinary skills, transferable skills, transversal skills, noncognitive skills, and soft skills, among others—are also widely used in reference to the general forms of knowledge and skill commonly associated with 21^st century skills. While these different terms may not be strictly synonymous, and they may have divergent or specialized meanings in certain technical contexts, these diverse sets of skills are being addressed in this one entry for the purposes of practicality and usefulness. (Julie Gyftoula, 2016, p.2)

It is worldly agreed that today's students need a wide chain of skills as advances in digital technology, the spread of globalization and interculturality have led to the rise of other requirements. These demands are to be possessed and owned by students in order to operate successfully in the real work-based world. Skills as technological literacy, collaboration, emotional intelligence, social skills, intercultural communication, teamwork, leadership; critical thinking, problem-solving, flexibility are deemed to be important and are to be addressed for successful personal, relational, academic and professional careers. 

However, these skills are not taken into consideration because the majority of teachers and students are either not well-acquainted with this notion or the context does not provide them with well-equipped classrooms that would assist them in crafting such skills. Furthermore, developing countries do not afford the materials and equipment that would boost learners' amelioration of these competencies. In our context, we would usually struggle to get a projector or a laptop when we want to display a video or give a PowerPoint presentation. Some students do not own a computer and do not know how to use it which depict a huge lack of digital literacies. This is only an exemplary of what some learners in developing states are facing as opposed to others who have got a chance to develop various 21^st century competencies.

Another issue that should be tackled is the fact that focusing on just acquiring and learning these abilities may cause an overwhelmed state of mind and produce learners who are often under pressure and stress leading to an elimination of joyful learning experience. The joy of learning is a crucial thing that should be addressed in every classroom as the concentration on acquiring such difficult and demanding skills would transform both teachers and learners into a robotic state of mind thinking only of how to achieve and learn more. They should always understand that the process of experimenting, discovering new things and rising queries is in itself a delightful activity that should never be ignored. Additionally, teachers should be conscious that although this digital age asks for a lot of competencies, this does not mean that learners whether they are young or adults are to be seen as machines that should be able of knowing everything. After all, learners should feel free to study whatever they want or desire; hence, achieving the joy of learning.

As final words, enjoying learning in the 21^st century can become a critical issue if the participants are not able of making a link between the importance of this age's skills and the joyfulness in acquiring them. Conjointly, it is important to realise that teachers need to reconnect with their students as the mind of these digital learners is cognitively and emotionally different. Being possessed by colourful screens, teachers need always to keep abreast of this technology based era and updated of any changes.