The real way to motivate someone to learn a thing is to give them a project or something they actually want to achieve instead of trying to absorb some drivel without a reason why. That's where self learning shines. You give a great example there. A notable one of mine would be learning vector math and quaternions through trying to make games years ago, but the list is endless and not limited to math or physics.
Most teachers and professors just parrot their subject material year after year after year without EVER giving a reason what any of that is used for or where should we apply it. It's just learning for learning's sake.
I suppose it's no surprise that when people are finally given the option to learn in a practical way at the odd subject that allows for some project work most students can't seem to think of a damn thing they want to do. It's like a systematic suppression of creativity to make education more like a factory production line.
I struggled with trigonometry in high school, to the point that I had to repeat the class twice. Each time I took the class it was the exact same lesson, and I struggled.
During my senior year I was able to take a course through BOCES on audio production. That course related some of the trigonometry I was struggling with to a subject I was deeply interested in.
I don't expect Math teachers to start teaching audio production, but it would have been nice if the teacher had seen me struggling and at least attempted to approach the subject from a different angle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah I mean I don't really see how we could practically make this approach work in a standard classroom, but the idea that CGP Grey presents where each student would have a sort of AI-tailored personal curriculum (or "digital Aristotle" as he calls it) would potentially allow for it, since each student then gets their own interests turned into projects they can work towards (and still learning the same concepts) while the group teacher is mainly there as an observer and helper.
I think if you put together an entire class of completely different projects that all somehow end up teaching trigonometry it would also help show everyone all the possible applications for it when discussing afterwards. I never would've guessed trig is used in audio for example.
Most teachers and professors just parrot their subject material year after year after year without EVER giving a reason what any of that is used for or where should we apply it. It's just learning for learning's sake.
I suppose it's no surprise that when people are finally given the option to learn in a practical way at the odd subject that allows for some project work most students can't seem to think of a damn thing they want to do. It's like a systematic suppression of creativity to make education more like a factory production line.