Quotations: Students' Motivations and Interests

«It doesn’t have to be the case that the students sit bored and indifferent in lessons. It is possible to interest them even without driving them to work through exam and grade pressure and thus ultimately the threat of being thrown out of school and the destruction of an envisaged career path. (…). Now, one will ask how this can happen. Unfortunately, it is not possible to create intrinsic student interest with a simple recipe. It constitutes a delicate plant that needs to be cultivated with patience. It requires that the instruction satisfies the student’s deep needs for insight, for overcoming problem situations, but also his curiosity and thirst for knowledge. It is also necessary for the teacher to exemplify this interest; the student has a keen sense for the genuineness and subject interest of the teacher and of his commitment to the lesson. Ultimately, the student has to have success in his learning activity and at the same time develop confidence, hope for success (Heckhausen 1964). If we only endow the student with experiences of failure and setbacks, it is no wonder that his motivation declines. This, in turn, requires two things. On the one hand, we have to plan the lessons such that the student directly perceives his own progress. The mere reference to its usefulness ‘in life’ is of little use here. On the other hand, we have to watch the student in the lesson, really see him, and in each moment try to sense whether he is able to follow, whether he reaches a result in his efforts to solve the set problems» (1980b, 25)

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