Abstract
D.Ed.
The child constitutes his world by experiencing
the content of life in a particular society. This
content is included in the school curriculum as
learning content after careful selection on the
basis of its intrinsic value for education.
Owing to the fact that the child attains adulthood
by internalizing content, it is of the utmost importance
that the pupil be motivated in such a
manner by the content of the teaching-learning situation,
that he learns because he wants to learn.
When the selected content is presented to the child
as a factual statement and not as a problem which
concerns him, it may be experienced as an answer to
a question which was never put. \~hen the child does
not experience the content which is presented to him
as a real life problem with which he can identify,
the result is often meaningless learning by rote
in order to avoid punishment, to pass a test, or to
win the favour of a teacher.
The interdependent nature of teaching and learning
has made it possible for the researcher to show
empirically how teacher strategies, focusing on the
learning content as an object of wonder, relate to
a willingness on the part of the pupil to learn in
a meaningful way. It was also shown that the absence
of teacher behaviour, concentrating on the
learning content as an object of wonder, is associated
with the absence of an inquiring attitude in pupils.
In categories 2, 4 and 6 below, the contingency
of the learning content is accentuated, whereas...