As a child, I can remember classes conducted by teachers whose teaching style was so deadly dull that the flies died on the windowsill, little legs sticking straight up, and the big boys snored in the last row.

Education was serious stuff and not to be taken lightly.

When I became a teacher times had changed. There were bright primary colors and interesting stories and vocabulary adjusted to the child's age level. Classrooms had bulletin boards with pretty pictures and samples of children's work, and desks and chairs often gave way to reading circles and illustrative stories.

Recent years have seen the advent of Sesame Street and other educational programs that served their learning lessons on a bed of highly entertaining puppets, stories, video clips, etc. Still, though, learning was the purpose and I think very effectively done, the content presented in formats which enabled retention.

"One of these things is not like the other....which of these things doesn't belong?" How many of us jumped up to point to the one that was different? Ah, Sesame Street!

But the fine line between education and entertainment has been crossed, I believe, in many of the Saturday morning programs. They purport to be educational, but cute entertainment is more like it, served up with a side dish of frivolity, sexualized little girls, and hard core salesmanship.

We have the same problem here. One of our trainers is so entertaining, the class participants hoot and holler and laugh their way through the class. But over and over again we find that they have "forgotten" the lessons (if they ever learned them ). The proof of the pudding....

I think maybe too often education which is really just entertainment can lead people into passive enjoyment instead of active learning.