Curriculum Choices 6-8 | Page 8

MOTIVATION-BASED LEARNING Robert White made a very important discovery about learning in 1959: we can learn things we’re not interested in, but if we are interested, we are more likely to retain the information that is being taught. According to Jim Rohn: “If a person is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.” Students in North America spend, on average, four hours a day watching television. The bright colors, exciting people and situations, and constant references to items that will, according to the seller, increase a student’s popularity and life quality, are strong motivators. Students want to watch television. They want to play games. They want to use the computer. The question we must ask ourselves is not how to keep them from doing these things, but how to use an alreadyexisting motivation to educate them. REQUIRED TEXTS The American Academy of Child and Adolescent psychology suggests that it is not the medium of 8TH GRADE: UNITED STATES MCGRAW-HILL LANGUAGE SAXON MATHEMATICS ISCIENCE GRADE 8 delivery that is the problem, but the content that is causing adolescents who watch a lot of television to perform less well in school and be more likely to become ill or obese than their peers. DISCOVERING OUR PAST We need to communicate with students on a platform WESTERN HEMISPHERE: GEO they understand and realize that they are already TEEN HEALTH (DIGIITAL) motivated in this area. Our students are already spending time in front of the television or on the computer. This is how they are connecting to one