To Want to Learn

Book excerpt: Lack of learner motivation is the single greatest challenge before American schools and colleges. When students are self-motivated, they invest more and work harder at learning even if resources are inadequate. Jackson Kytle's provocative book argues that students and teachers waste time and human energy because the conventional curriculum rests on flawed mental models. Hope for change requires a searching critique of modernity as well as expanded theories of human motivation and learning based on advances in neurobiology and cognitive studies. After consideration of existentialism and choice of life purposes, and the dynamics of psychological involvement, Kytle closes his ambitious, interdisciplinary book with ten considerations for better learning.