I was reading a paper by D'Mello, Craig, et al last night on emotions and learnng.  I came across a concept called "cognitive disequilibrium."  The authors said that "deep comprehension occurs when learners confront contradictions, anomalous events, obstacles to goals, salient contrasts, perturbations, surprises, equivalent alternatives, and other stimuli."  When this happens, there is a high likelihood that learners will activate "conscious, effortful, cognitive deliberation, questions, and inquiry" in order to regain equilibrium.

I don't think the concept is new.  This is the motivation behind philosophizing as well--to make sense of the world and of ourselves.

However, in the context of learning, then challenge for the teacher is to create just enough cognitive disequilibrium to keep the students motivated.  Learn to do that, and you're on your way to becoming a great teacher.