She Who Has Ears......

I've got two of them right here on either side of my head.  They're cute, a little flappy and adorned with silver loops. 
I call them my ears and I'm quite partial to them.  Honestly, they're cute!
But vanity aside, the real reason I love them so much is that they are super great information absorbers.  They just take in all kinds of audio info like talking people, melodic tunes, podcasts, and indicative noises to alert me to stuff.  Blinks and tings and blurbs and burps and fiddle-dee-dos. 

And yet, these flappy and silver-looped things called ears don't always work so well because there are times when I'm sitting there and just not hearing a thing.
Like when my husband and oldest son start talking hockey stats or trading deadlines.  My ears are right there being all flashy but it's like they refuse to take in or process any of that hockey-trading-information.  It's like they're straight-arming all that audio info:  "Hey now, you ain't wanted here!" and shooing it back out the ear canal:  "Git!  Git along now."  (my ears apparently have a  southern accent). 
And I know I'm not alone.  I've noticed that every single person can be Engaged or Not Engaged by what is going on around them.  And it seems that Interest is at fault.

Well, duh, you are all thinking.  Obviously when I'm interested in something, I'm engaged....but humour me for a moment. 

Because in a classroom or homeschool room or any learning environment, aren't there certain particulars that we just want every single student and child to know and learn?  Aren't there?

Like, I want every one of my kids to learn how to write her 1-2-3s and A-B-Cs.  I want all my children to know how to read and write and do long division without a calculator and write an essay and identify all the parts of the digestive system and be able to understand Salvation and Redemption and the Grace-of-God and also know all about all the continents and where they're located.  Right?

But one child took to reading and writing with little to no assistance and another loves math like he was born with the multiplication tables on his newborn lips and yet another loves solving any dilemma involving computer technology and another one.....pushes his books away angrily.
Frustrated.
Upset.
Annoyed and unwilling to do anything more.
And doing that downward spiral thing that kids do when they just can't get the information to flow far enough down their ear canals to get processed by the brain.

Interest is not piqued here.  His angry face and folded arms are clearly indicating not only a lack of interest but a mounting frustration.
And frustration seems to build a wall that blocks out everything.
There ain't no learning happening here, folks!
Except for the part where the child is processing this: "I'm stupid.  I can't do this.  This is stupid.  I hate it.  I hate school.  I hate learning." 
EEK, right?

This is not the lesson any parent or educator or teacher wants her student/ child to take home.

So, how do we get a child to learn in this situation?

Bring in singing goats?  Tickle torture? 
Nopety-nope-nope.

If the material isn't piquing the interest.....we gotta raise the interest another way.
Dr. Seuss did this with his uproariously hilarious word-play.  He saw beginner readers for kids that were so blandishly boring that he thought kids might object to learning how to read simply so they could avoid finding out more on the lives of Dick and Jane.

"Look, Dick, look," said Jane blandly.
"See Spot run," commented Dick mildly.
"Run, Spot, run," countered Jane in a monotone.
Spot can run but not well. 
Spot has died of boredom.

"Snort!" thought Dr. Seuss when he read these hideously dry readers; then he word-crafted and spun tales about Cats in Hats and creatures who Hop on Pop.  Today, my reluctant reader giggled his way through both Dr. Seuss books.  Giggled and then reached for more.

Learning can be so so so much fun. 
Sometimes it's in the material but sometimes .....sometimes it's in the way the material is presented.  Let's never lose sight of that!
Not as teachers or pastors or speakers.

Back to the unmotivated learner....

My reluctant reader is also a reluctant writer.  So we turned his lesson into a game. 
I gave him a list of words.  He had a short checklist of what was needed in the writing assignment.  I then found some candies and hid them in a tupperware container that we renamed "Ye Olde Treasure Chest". 
"Okay, buddy," I sang out in an overly cheerful way, "If you can accomplish these tasks in ye olde writing assignment, you can win the treasure!  Argh!"  I presented the checklist and held my breath.
Would it work?
Would his interest be piqued?
Could we learn through game and fun and tomfoolery?

And then.....his eyes lit up.  He unfolded his arms and snatched a pencil from the table and began scrawling.  Writing.  Trying and pushing himself.  And checking off his list until he was done and done and the treasure was in his wee hands. Argh!

The best part?  Success fuels success.
He was done and feeling good about accomplishing his writing assignment.  And that good feeling carried through math and reading and 18th Century Philosophy Class.  Okay, I'm just kidding about that last one!

Perhaps having ears isn't enough.  We need Interest to be roused to usher all that information along to our brains.  Sometimes that interest is natural.  And sometimes we gotta inspire interest through games and challenges and stories and all around tomfoolery.
I'm pretty sure that would work for me. 
As in, I'd learn hockey stats in exchange for Ye Olde Treasure!
How about you?