ABSTRACT
What is the fuel of learning if not curiosity? The intrinsic desire to know something is essential to true education, both short term and lifelong. The best stimulator of curiosity is a problematic or incongruous fact, situation, or idea. These motivators can be the beginning and center of every unit, lesson, or class day. (See Appendix Figure A.1, Classroom Motivation Wheel.) Teachers as well as students can find the weirdest facts about any subject and see where they lead. The facts can “ambush” the students’ minds. Discrepancy pursued leads to congruency. True learning is pursuit. “In any field, find the strangest thing and explore it” was said by John Wheeler, the man who proved black holes exist (quoted in James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, 1993).
