 Two hundred children's voices. Children learn best if they're engaged in their own learning and their independent thinkers and they're able to construct reality and meaning from the world around them. From the moment they're born they know what they want and so originally there's this primal instinct but as they get older they make decisions, they're independent, they're curious and they're really keen to explore what's around them and so it's important to listen to children speak about what motivates and engages them in their learning and continually refer back to how they would like to learn so that teachers can focus on that motivation and engagement. So this study involved kindergarten right through to year two asking two hundred children what it is that motivates them and how they like to learn, how children think and how they learn and what excites them about being involved in formal education. We spoke to children in five state school classrooms in three early childhood education centres and in the state library about the way they like to learn. In order to get the children's ideas flowing we asked them to draw pictures of themselves engaged in the act of learning and especially learning that they saw as being particularly exciting. We asked them to tell us about who they like to learn with and from, how they like to learn what and where they like to learn. We needed people to see that even very young children are confident and capable and able to articulate their ideas and the only way to capture that is to video record them in action. So these videos reconnect us with young people and make sure that we instill the value in learning of that curiosity and that excitement and positivity that young people bring. It's in all of our best interest to engage children and help them to develop into the future leaders in society. So from a teacher's point of view it's essential that they focus on what it is that motivates children and how they like to learn. It's important for us to make sure that we're focusing on the learner and for teachers to take that into account and to build learning experiences that increases capability through that engagement is fundamental to learning.