People remember material better when they are interested, especially when humor is involved, according to the text book used by Edwardsville High School’s Honors Psychology class. The concept, called emotional interest, is simple. But school is boring. Students often lack the intrinsic motivation necessary to learn subjects without an interest in them; therefore, a teacher must find a way to strike a balance between excitement and education or risk not teaching students valuable material.

"I think the teacher should try to instill motivation, but they should only go so far," says Lizzie White, senior. White and Stephanie Sandifer, senior, explain that an ideal teacher is patient, understanding and does not choose favorites. They added that teachers should be lenient to an extent, but still expect students to turn in their assignments.

Emotions strongly affect motivation, according to Candy Lawson, Ph.D. "Often students don’t seem to be motivated in school. They don’t want to do homework or schoolwork and believe that they are dumb or stupid. Even though they put out effort, they are never successful and fail to achieve their goals…a lack of motivation prevents new learning; it ‘turns off the switch’," says Lawson in "The Connections between Emotions and Learning" for the Center for Development and learning.

Scott Hagin, White and Sandifer’s favorite teacher, uses off-beat activities to help students understand concepts he teaches in his math classes. On the day of the interview Hagin used a tournament of "pass the pigs" to teach the statistical principle of t-scores. On another occasion students launched gummy bears to learn about proportions. Sandifer says, "I’m not much of a math person, but Hagin made it fun."

Similarly, Julia Doll, biology teacher, and Colin Pressy, Doll’s student teacher, put on costumes to catch their student’s attention. Doll, wearing a wet suit, goggles, snorkel and flippers, used her appearance to launch a discussion on the ocean biome while keeping her students interested. Pressy wore a dolphin costume and used his "tail" to demonstrate the difference between the way mammals and fish swim. Although her students may not be riveted by biomes, her presentation captured their interest.

Emotions are controlled by the limbic system, located near the brainstem and the cortex. The brainstem controls alertness and arousal, and will send sensory messages to the cortex, which controls a majority of learning and thinking, through the limbic system, according to Lawson. "If the limbic system interprets the information as positive, it dispatches a message of purpose and excitement and directs our behavior toward a goal." Lawson adds that positive reactions aid learning, but negative reactions make learning more difficult.

Jane Hicks, social science teacher, agrees that it is important to have fun in class, but "if a teacher is going to make it always fun...and nobody gets anything done...then I think that’s a terrible waste of time." To keep students interested, Hicks tries to accomplish three different things within a 50 minute class, and to do unexpected tasks, such as debates, a few times during the semester. "I think that education works best when both sides are motivated. When you have a teacher who is teaching something that they know a lot about and that they love, and then you have kids that have been taught by their parents or they have just come about it naturally that education is important, and being an educated person is a goal to achieve.... I think that when you have both parties coming half way, then that works out best," says Hicks.

Hicks adds, "I love this stuff and when I am getting a chance to present it to people and explain it to people and discuss it with people, to me it doesn’t feel like work, it’s not drudgery...I’m excited about it and I think having someone who cares about what they teach would help... If I had to teach something I had no interest in I would probably not be a very good teacher."