Chapter 10 - Interest

In the previous chapters, James said a lot about how to understand the workings of a learner's (particularly a child's) mind. As I reflect on these with regard to chapter ten, the most salient points have been the following:

• There are learner characteristics and behaviors pertaining to the less educated (or trained) mind 
• More experienced learners exhibit other attributes and behaviors. 

Of these, James often calls the former native and the latter acquired reactions. This is important because with so many things in life we must consider our target audience in order to be effective in serving them.

In chapter nine, James explains the concept of idea association; how ideas emanate from and are linked to previous ideas in successive waves of thought. He is setting the stage, in my opinion, for one of the more useful chapters so far.

In order to understand how to apply this chapter to practical situations, we have to understand this notion of native versus acquired reactions and extrapolate it to the concept of attracting a student's interest. Consider the following passage:

"Since some objects are natively interesting and in others interest is artificially acquired, 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).

This is a powerfully true statement for anyone familiar with children. He mentions that young children are not at all interested in abstract concepts, and are immediately interested in living, moving and interactive things; things which are unique and perhaps just a little (or maybe a lot) dangerous. Moreover, James wrote that in order to garner interest in an object of which children have no native interest, one must link it to something interesting.

What items do you find get children's interest right away? Are there items which hold their attention longer than others?