Calvin

Unfortunately, Ms. Wormwood is not tapping into Calvin's interests whatsoever. Ms. Wormwood fails to establish relevance in her lesson, when Calvin has clearly stated that he is lacking connections from the classroom to the real-world. She fails to connect with Calvin's interests of dinosaurs and science-fiction by ignoring what he likes, and scolding at him when thinking in fantasy. In addition, when Calvin goes to school he experiences scolding from not only Ms. Wormwood, but also his fellow students, making him lack in emotional support, and feel uncomfortable when coming to school.

What are Calvin's motivational patterns?

A lot of Calvin's true interests lie in topics that require deep thought and consideration, such as the morality of various subjects, ignorance, and the effectiveness of modern education. He also has a deep-rooted interest in using his imagination to think of things like superheroes, dinosaurs and tanks. He does not find interest in things that he does not find applicable to his life, whether that be his imaginary one or his real one. This is why he often has trouble in school; he does not find the content being taught in school to be applicable to his life. In the section, below, we will dive into Calvin's motivational patterns in terms of the four-phase model of the Interest Theory.

Calvin's Triggered Situational Interest

Calvin's teacher very rarely captures his triggered situational interest in the classroom. However, there are several cases in which we see Calvin's situational interest being triggered outside of the classroom. In the cartoon above, you can see that Calvin and Hobbes' situational interest is being triggered by a snake that they found. This is proof that even for Calvin, whom Ms. Wormwood sees as someone who never finds interest in anything, can find triggered situational interest anywhere.

Calvin's Maintained Situational Interest

Maintained situatonal interest cannot occur if triggered situational interest does not occur first. Therefore, it is very rare that you will see Calvin have maintained situational interest within the classroom due to the lack of triggered situational interest that occurs for him. You can find Calvin having maintained situational interest outside of the classroom, though, because that is the space when he is much more willing to explore and learn.

Calvin's Emerging Individual Interest

Calvin seems to be much more interested in learning on his own accord rather than learning when others tell him to. He actually has a deep desire to learn, contrary to what Ms. Wormwood would likely think about Calvin. In the example above, you can see Calvin begin to show interest in paleontology. He found a topic that he is interested in, and went out of his way to research more about it and apply it to his own life.

Calvin's Well-Developed Individual Interest

Calvin has a lot of intrinsic individual interests that power what he does and how he acts. For example, he is really interested in using his imagination to view the world in a new way. He is especially interested in dinasaurs and superheroes, so he loves to imagine these concepts in real-life scenarios. In the comic above, you can see that Calvin's emerging individual interest for palentology continued to grow into a well-developed individual interest as he spent more time researching and learning more about it.

Above gives examples of Calvin's motivational patterns, through the format of the Four-Phase Model. Below will be the reasons why Calvin has these interests using the eight examples of motivational patterns.

Background knowledge

Calvin's interest and "distraction" around dinosaurs mainly stems from a wide background knowledge on the subject. Because of this, it makes him more inclined to gravitate towards them.

Emotions

Calvin is a very creative student, and it seems that is his mind likes to wander during class (perhaps due to heightened emotions). In this comic, his process seems to take a lot of time due to his creativity, and may make his vision around tests/ learning as boring, or a lot of work.

Competence

In this comic, Calvin simply doesn't try the assignment because to him, it seems impossible. This relates to Calvin's insecurity around Competence, because he believes he won't be good enough at the assignment.

Social Support

Even though Calvin is a rowdy kid, he seems to get bullied in school a lot. His only friend is his stuffed tiger Hobbes which he feels a deep connection to. He doesn't have a positive social support in school where he feels comfortable learning.

Culture

Calvin seems to have a lot of personality from his dad (sarcastic, full of jokes, and imaginative). This could be a reflection of his home "culture", and be the reason on why he has such strong oppositions towards school.

Identity

In Calvin's journey through school, he appears as stupendous man for when he might be feeling self conscious about a certain activity. This is because in his mind, stupendous man can do anything, and that's what Calvin strives towards in his Identity

Utility-Goal Relevance

Calvin has a hard time seeing the real-life relevance of what he's learning in school. His argument is, if I won't need it in the future, why bother to care about learning it now?

Hole in Schema

Despite Calvin's knowledge on many things (such as aliens, dinosaurs, and the economy), this comic shows that once he found out something new about snakes, he immediately wanted to learn more because it was "cool". He realized there was a hole in his schema about snakes, and wanted to learn.

Advice For Ms. Wormwood

Ms. Wormwood is doing a terrible job considering and helping Calvin's interests. Now this may sound like a terrible situation, but this also means there are a lot of ways Ms. Wormwood can change her habits and hopefully help Calvin.

So what are Calvin's Interests? (Emerging Situational Interest and Well developed Individual interest)

Dinosaurs
Science-Fiction
Real Life Scenarios

What is Ms. Wormwood doing to trigger these stage 3 and 4 interests into her classroom?

Emotions

Calvin needs to come to school and not feel like an outsider. He already has a hard time connecting to the fellow students, so when his teacher also yells and scolds at him, he has no one. Ms. Wormwood should respond to Calvin's comments with:

More positive feedback.
Acknowledging his thoughts.
Quit saying "because I say so" (or related phrases).

Hands-On

Ms. Wormwood is doing a terrible job integrating different forms of content into her classroom. Calvin has specifically made comments of the course failing to teach him real life skills. Ms. Wormwood should be taking this a hint and find ways to simulate real world scenarios in her classroom.

Provide games that relate to the lesson but teach life-skills (fake money/store management, etc.)
Give students opportunities to search for learning outside of school (i.e. Photosynthesis is happening in your backyard!).

Creativity

Ms. Wormwood's classroom is not appealing to many students because it's very Teacher oriented. Her classroom revolves around tests, lectures, and students sitting at their desk. One of Calvin's biggest strengths is his incredible imagination. Ms. Wormwood can take advantage of this, and incorporate more creativity in her classroom.

Provide more opportunities for student-led activities.
Differentiate the curriculum by providing different mediums of learning. (building, team activities, experiments, etc.)

Competence

Calvin is struggling with feeling competent in school because Ms. Wormwood does not provide any positive feedback, she does not listen to Calvin's interest, and she shuts down opportunities where Calvin wants to learn, such as when he first learns about snakes. Calvin should be motivated and encouraged from Ms. Wormwood.

Provide time during class to talk about outside interests. (i.e. show and tell, career day, bring your parents to school, etc.)
Accept that students will struggle, and help them to grow.

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