ABSTRACT
For children to be engaged and involved in a learning situation, the teacher needs to command their attention. This is partly achieved by a mixture of confidence and sensitivity which makes children feel involved and know what they are supposed to be doing. Children do need to be supervised, guided, corrected, informed, and—in a word—taught. The big issue, however, is whether this is done by harnessing their natural enthusiasm, curiosity and interest or whether they are treated as little animals that have to be tamed. In psychotherapy and psychoanalytical sessions, it is common for patient to be worried that they are boring the therapist. In such cases, the therapist needs point out to the patient that what makes somebody interesting is not their cleverness or their spectacular achievements, but how far they genuinely share their personal experience. In classroom, it is the teacher whose job it is to engage with children, capture their interest and not bore them to death.
