ABSTRACT
Motivation for learning is clearly a major problem for teachers. Why is it that children appear to learn and remember some things out of school more readily than other things in school? If you watch children playing some of their games, such as marbles or hopscotch, you will be amazed at the number and complication of the rules that exist, yet they are easily understood and applied by even very young children at the infant stage. It is also noticeable how some older children, who appear to drift through their secondary school life in the lower streams with little interest or little ability to read, are able to discuss the pop tunes of vocalists, the words of the songs, the different instrumentalists and often their past records and hits. Again, there are secondary schoolboys who speak with a great deal of expertise and almost professional knowledge about the workings of the motor cycle, or about the motor-car engine. Yet these are the same pupils whose record cards reveal them to have below-average attainment when they are required to learn far less complicated matters during school hours. One often notices the general air of enthusiasm among the first-year pupils of the infant school as compared with the look of boredom on the faces of many pupils in our secondary schools. What has happened to the eager 5-year-old who becomes the laggardly 15-year-old?
