What can make students want to learn?

When I was in school, my motivation was I want to get high grades. additional points can probably work. exemption in a quiz or something.

but it really depends on the student what motivates him/her :S

what I seem to see with other students because I am a student(in college tho) but interest and relation with the subject. for example not too many students want to learn about something stupid that has no relation to them or interest to them. thats what a lot of teachers do wrong, they just teach from the book and don’t realize that they really don’t teach anything. a good teacher should be able to make a subject interesting.

yeah how old are they? rewards will work for children around 5-10 years old. after that its a bit tricky.

but yeah I think you should try and relate the subject to their lives and stuff they would be interested in.

it depends what grade do you teach im in highschool now but I remember if we did all of our work we would get to have the afternoon off that was grade 4 so ever fortnight we would get thursday or firday afternoon of or their was these raffle things and we would get a ticket ever time were good and the she would on friday draw out the tickets and we would get a prize oh and if its highschool science find fun expirments oh and dont say corny jokes and say funny stuff like when we were learning about sex after that topic are teacher was like lets put this topic to bed everyone cracked up