Fish!... what do I understand by this?

"Not only as we hear in prognostications from James Gee, Marc Prensky, and others, but our own intuition tells us (as well as watching kids), that when learning is done right, it can and should be fun. Learning should be hard fun."
Clark N. Quinn


I went to the class a bit late. A friend to me that she started the class by "throwing" some toy fishes to us. Some of the friends who got the fish are supposedly to throw it to other friends. I was not in the class during the activity but it sounds exiting to me. I can imagine that they are having fun at the moment since there must be giggling and laughing during the activity. What a miss..

During this week, prof. Maznah introduced us with this Fish! philosophy, which was a new philosophy that i gained. i believe that she has introduced us with an example of how to apply the fish philosophy in the classroom. Personally, i think that the philosophy is really different from the philosophy that i have been introduce during previous semester. I realize that there are four FISH! principles:

Be There—When we interact with others, we need to really focus on that moment, with that person. We take responsibility for “being who we are while we’re doing what we’re doing.”

Choose Your Attitude—We can’t control what happens to us, but we do have a choice about how we respond. By accepting responsibility for the attitude we choose, we also empower ourselves to change it.

Make Their Day—Too often we ask, “What have you done for me lately?” instead of “How can I make your day?” If we turn the focus around and do little things to make others feel good, we can have a powerful, positive impact on the people in our lives.

Play—This does not mean goof off, but it does mean bring a light-hearted spirit to life. Think about how much little kids learn by exploring, experimenting, playing. Why shouldn’t we all approach life with the same curiosity and interest? Besides, it is more fun!

Through the article, I have come into understanding that fish philosophy is some other technique to arouse pupils' interest and inner spirit by introducing to them some activity or event that are catchy and playful which enable to bring happiness, stress-free and excitement in oneself. Thus, the important of this is to develop high spirit in oneself so that he or she are spiritually able to produce high-quality product. For example, pupils who are having fun and full of excitement will produce better result in the task given compared to the pupils who are learning in a stressful and threatening environment.

In addition, fish philosophy helps teacher to create the classrooms to be respectful and cool, where students are fully ready for learning.At this point, i believe that everyone has fun in a way that provide ideas and work together to the excitement of learning rather than being individualistic and selfish. Here, FISH! For Schools also helps teachers to build stronger relationships with students. It will inspire students to want to learn better and explore more.