A couple of weeks ago (at the time of writing), I had the pleasure of joining Bettool Jabur on the podcast “Optimize et al” (an episode to be released after the summer). Further reflection on our conversation brought me back to some critical attributes we’ll need to prioritize in the educational sector as we move into the future.

I’ve had similar discussions with colleagues for quite some time—particularly around how our role as educators intersects with the media bubbles that increasingly shape our students’ lives. 

And I’ve always fundamentally disagreed with the notion that educators should be seen as entertainers.

While I absolutely appreciate—and even support—the pedagogical strategy of borrowing elements from outside the classroom to help boost attention retention (in what often feels like a never-ending struggle against TikTok and Instagram), we have to keep sight of education’s deeper purpose.

As Paulo Freire so eloquently argued, the real value of education lies in freeing individuals from the shackles of ignorance and in restoring a measure of control over their own destinies in the face of complex societal challenges.

With that in mind, I’d argue that by steering our schools to mimic entertainers, we’re actually devaluing much of what these institutions can—and should—offer to society.

If knowing is enjoyable, the act of learning itself isn’t necessarily so. Its true value reveals itself when we’re confronted with challenges and manage to overcome them through intellect, even in the face of overwhelming odds. But achieving a proper understanding of reality demands hard work—there’s no shortcut around it.

For instance, in the field of architecture, there’s a persistent tension between new means of production—often dismissed as limiting by older practitioners who, arguably, have little to no real experience with these techniques—and a society that is becoming increasingly technified.

It doesn’t help that there’s also a romantic impulse among some new practitioners who—often due to limited exposure or training—gravitate back toward older methods. Nowhere is this more visible than in the realm of computational design, a field where we’ve had sophisticated tools for well over two decades, yet still see surprisingly little to show for it.

It then becomes natural to ask: Is it perhaps that these skills simply aren’t in demand?

Hardly. At least in the Norwegian context, some of the country’s administrative bodies responsible for infrastructure have clearly indicated that, if anything, we need more people mastering these competencies.

And yet, almost none of our schools have made a conscious effort to integrate this knowledge into students’ training as a core design methodology. Instead, they often compound ignorance—dressing it up as virtue by sidestepping topics deemed “hard” or “unnecessary.”

There is a fair point buried within the critique, though: the material could certainly be made more engaging. Of course, the subject matter itself still wouldn’t necessarily become fun. But I’d argue that the intrinsic value of the creative process ultimately redeems it—though this is something we only come to appreciate after completing the work, not before.

Ultimately, nothing of real value for society is likely to emerge in the future from disciplines that aren’t inherently complex. That’s simply a feature of our increasingly technological world and the kinds of problems that demand more multidisciplinary cooperation and integration.

Until then, it would be a mistake to think of education as mere entertainment.