Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

“I do well in the subjects I’m interested in, but not in _______, it’s boring.” Whenever I asked a high school advisee to evaluate his or her work, I got some variation of this responsemost of the time. Iwould usually followupby asking, “What makes a subject interesting?” The reasons varied even more than the subjects. While there was no agreement, there was the common thread of passion. When we’re interested in something, we feel attracted, drawn in, curious, expectant—we give emotional meaning to what it means to be a student—when interest stirs our desire to know or do or make something. This is hardly a fresh insight, but for all its obvious roots in etymology, interest remains the ongoing problem of educational practice. One way of stating the problem is to ask, How do we get students interested in learning something? Answers come fast and ready made, running the gamut from rewards to punishments, from psychological development to social control. But whatever the answer, the problem remains, because, of course, we can’t “get” a child to do anything. . . . Or more accurately, we can certainly force, induce, and control the child, but we do so only at our peril if our goal is to educate. In all the years I’ve tried to guide students toward broadening and deepening their schoolwork, I’ve continued to marvel at the magic and the mystery of interest: the same subject taught by the same teacher could be at once the most thrilling thing going and the deadliest drudgery of all time. In John Dewey and the Lessons of Art ð1998Þ, Philip W. Jackson finds a more sophisticated version of the problem of interest through his study of Dewey’s lifelong concerns about what happens when learning actually occurs. Jackson starts with another cliche, this one the “mantra” of progressive education: “learning by doing.” Does this mean that students learn only