Are We Having Fun Yet?

I don’t have a television, but there are a couple shows I catch regularly on Hulu. I knew that last night was going to be Conan’s last broadcast on the Tonight Show, so this morning I streamed it while I was doing some laundry. Typical Conan antics, but then came this…

What Conan said about how much he has enjoyed his job reminded me of David Warlick’s post I’d read earlier in the morning, Do Grown-Ups Learn. In it, Dave argues that playfulness is an important aspect of learning.

I think playfulness is also a powerful counter to cynicism, which Conan says is his least favorite quality. Conan said, “”Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

If we didn’t get exactly what we thought we were going to get in our schools, our students, their parents, or ourselves, what are we doing to change them or our attitudes, so we can say, with Conan, “This is the best job in the world. I absolutely love doing it.”