Interest

Interest is the key to further learning. For James, additional learning can only occur if the student’s interest is captured. He sees this as occurring through connecting ideas to the student’s native interest. “The teacher must know which the natively interesting ones are; for, as we shall see immediately, other objects can artificially acquire an interest only through first becoming associated with some of these natively interesting things” (p. 46). Again, James is calling for the teacher to make connections with the student’s interest, helping them to make connections between new materials and their previous knowledge and interests. “Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists” (p. 47).

The objective is to build a series of interrelated concepts that are personally meaningful to the student. To James, this ability to help students make the connections is the mark of the good teacher. In talking about interest, James brings up the idea of ownership in terms of a student possessing his or her school materials versus merely borrowing them. This idea can also be translated to the idea of making knowledge one’s own, through personal connections with the material and incorporating the knowledge into one’s identity. If you think of one’s interests in terms of likes or hobbies, this concept of ownership becomes obvious. Those who take an interest in something will often have artifacts indicating their interest (book collections, musical instruments, etc.) and have stories and memories relating to those interest that are incorporated into their personal identity. So too does a student of any subject make personal meaning of the information that they obtain by taking part in activities that incorporate that knowledge into their experiences.

James notes that connecting ideas to that which the student already is familiar with is a good way to generate interest. I think that this could at times require much creativity on behalf of the teacher to help make those connections. Some links are obvious, but others may be harder to find. How do you help each student make a unique connection? In some ways, this problem is similar to that presented in the association of ideas. Given the individualistic nature of each student’s experience, how do you spark their interest while not losing the interest of the rest of the class?