The Swiss scholar Etienne Wenger created an important framework to help people think about learning differently. He states that when we learn something, it is more than just acquiring knowledge or accumulating facts and information, because learning changes us as people. When we learn new ideas, we see the world differently—we have a different way of thinking and a different way of interpreting every event in our lives. As Wenger says, learning is a process of identity formation. Psychologists used to see identity as a static concept, maintaining that we all have “an” identity that we develop as children and keep throughout our lives. But more recent work has given identity a more fluid meaning, suggesting that we can all have different identities in different parts of our lives. You might, for example, present yourself differently as a member of a sports team than you do in your job or in a family role. I wrote this book because I know that when we learn about brain growth, mindset, and multidimensional deep and collaborative thinking, it unlocks aspects of our true selves. These ideas do not turn us into different people, but they can set free what was in us already, what was always possible for us but in many cases not being realized.
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When we give up on something and decide we cannot do it, it is rarely because of actual limits; instead, it is because we have decided we cannot do it. We are all susceptible to this negative and fixed thinking, but we become particularly susceptible to it when we age and start to feel that we are not as physically or mentally strong as we once were.
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I am often asked by teachers what they can do with their “unmotivated” students. It is my firm belief that all students want to learn, and they only act unmotivated because someone, at some time in their lives, has given them the idea that they cannot be successful. Once students let go of these damaging ideas and someone opens a learning pathway for them, the lack of motivation goes away.
