ABSTRACT
Built deeply into human nature is a robust propensity to learn and to actively assimilate knowledge and cultural practices (Rogoff , 2003; Ryan, 1995). We have evolved to be both curious and social, with strong epistemic motives to understand our surroundings and ourselves. Yet, rather than capitalizing on this inherently active and curious nature, educational institutions too oft en attempt to replace it with strategies of external control, monitoring, evaluation, and artifi cial rewards to foster learning. As a result learning becomes a chore rather than a joy-an activity to be avoided rather than sought out, at least in the context of schools. At the same time, some individual educators creatively manage to carve out niches within these institutions in which they allow their students’ inner tendency to learn to become manifest, and in rare cases (usually outside of the mainstream) whole schools create islands upon which natural desires to grow and learn fl ourish.
