Yearning for Learning

"I've come to believe that teaching is impossible: one can only try to make someone want to learn. Often, it seems, what is most important is not the answers you try to provide, but the questions you raise."
John Burton

Since, as Deming and others point out, learning is an innate desire we are all born with, the task changes a bit from that of "making" to one of "restoring" that desire. As Deming says, "we must restore the individual...release the power of human resource contained in intrinsic motivation that people are born with". Deming sees the damage done by extrinsic motivation:

"Extrinsic motivation in extreme replaces intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity. One is born with intrinsic motivation, self esteem, dignity, cooperation, curiosity, a yearning for learning. These attributes are high at the beginning of life, but are gradually crushed out, diminished, year by year, throughout life. Crushed out by the forces of destruction along the top. The forces of destruction build up these undesirable qualities, characteristics, listed here [I can't see the slide in the video], and crush out what one is born with, intrinsic motivation, self esteem, dignity, cooperation, curiosity, yearning for learning. Why crush them out, why not nuture them? Mere change will not do it. We cannot just remodel the prison. No, we've got to get out of it." --W.E. Deming

W. Edwards Deming on the Future of Capitalism