Relevent Learning

I've been working like crazy on my code academy work.  I've finished the first two sections of HTML.  This hasn't been terribly difficult, partially because I've been exposed to HTML before, and am semi-comfortable with it.  Also, the weather has been poor, so while the kids play indoors, I've been playing.  Playing is the key word here.  I love to learn... its fun!  I love feeling like I've learned something new.  I try to learn something every day.  I am very lucky, as I have control over what I am learning.  For the most part, if I don't want to learn something, I just walk away.  I sometimes feel sorry for my students because they are constantly being told what they have to learn, how to learn it, and when to learn it.  As a former high school student, I remember being very frustrated by this.  I remember thinking, "I will never forget how this feels"  and being very angry. 
As a teacher, I try to remember that feeling every time I have to issue a mandate in my classroom.  If I am instituting a rule, I have a very good reason, and I explain it to my students.  If I ask them to learn something, (which as a teacher, I tend to do) I try to make it relevant to their lives.  I can't always do this, mostly because of high stakes testing, but even though I am required to touch on certain standards, I still always try to make things interesting.  I think most teachers try to do this.  Where they run into problems is they (and me) don't always know what is interesting to their students.  This isn't always the teachers' fault, by their very nature teenagers don't like adults to know what they are thinking and what their interests are, unless they trust them very much.  Another reason teachers have trouble is that they truly enjoy their subject and can't understand why everyone else doesn't feel the same way about it.  It's almost heartbreaking for them to discover that not everyone loves their subject. 
I think that if we as teachers work to learn who our students are, we will learn what their interests are.  Once that happens, it is easy to discover what projects will appeal to them.  Then we just have to mold those projects to cover our standards.  Piece of Cake right?