ABSTRACT
This is a chapter about disinclinations and missing motivation; about learners who build barriers in their minds against a serious engagement with learning. The chapter explores research which might help schools to understand how this type of underachievement comes about. It also looks closely at the individual and some of those ‘symptoms’ of underachievement that might help teachers to recognise who they are talking about and begin to think through how they might respond. Issues of gender – underachieving boys – might well play a part, but so too does the way educators teach and organise learning. The concept of ‘priming the pump’ is discussed alongside a whole list of both classroom strategies and more general ways to counter demotivation. The chapter concludes with strategies to help and a plea that teachers find ways of breaking through those ‘walls in the head’ and avoid helping to build them.
