 |
| Source: www.pexels.com |
By Sam Piha
“Childhood curiosity is an innate, powerful internal drive to acquire new information, understand how the world works, and fill knowledge gaps. It acts as a primary motivator for learning, characterized by eager exploration, constant questioning, and a ‘Goldilocks’ desire for optimally challenging information.” [i]
Afterschool youth programs should tap into young people’s innate curiosity. This involves assessing where the program is in engaging young people’s curiosity. This paper explores these issues and provides information related to youth curiosity, including ways afterschool programs can support curiosity. (We relied on articles and AI research to develop this blog.)
“Curiosity is one of the main ways children learn about the world. When kids ask ‘why?’ or ‘how does this work?’, they’re not just being playful—they’re actively building understanding, problem-solving skills, and creativity.” [ii]
According to Penn State Extension, “Curiosity is an important trait that leads to learning. When children are comfortable and feel safe, they are naturally able to explore their worlds. The more your child explores, the more he learns. Curiosity drives kids to try new things.
Strong curiosity gives children confidence to try new things. Trying new things opens up new worlds to your child. It brings excitement to life. Children who are curious enjoy their lives. They are less likely to get bored and find life dull or routine. They feel that there are always new, interesting things just around the corner. It can lead them to have adventurous and interesting lives.” [iii]
CuriOdyssey writes, “Curiosity is the desire to learn, to understand new things and to know how they work. ‘We can teach a new generation to observe patterns in our world and in science, technology, engineering and math by taking advantage of their natural tendency to be curious, thereby enhancing the likelihood of new discoveries and inventions,’ says CuriOdyssey Executive Director Rachel Meyer. ‘We need people who are curious and who feel free to tinker and explore without fear of failure. When curious people fail, they analyze their failure to understand it so they can do better the next time.’
Curiosity is at the very root of the scientific process. After observation the first step is to ask, ‘Why?’ Supporting kids’ natural curiosity at an early age about what makes the world work is the best way to excite their interest in STEM. Whether kids aspire to become scientists or artists, science fluency, like being fluent in a language, will make them better at it. If we do not spark curiosity, future generations will not understand the benefits of being science-fluent.
Curiosity is the mark of an active, open, observant mind and helps us see learning as fun, fueling imagination, creativity and innovation. It prepares the brain for learning and makes subsequent learning more rewarding. Research also shows that curiosity is just as important as intelligence in determining how well students do in school.” [iv]
 |
| Source: Resilient Educator |
How Traditional Schooling Kills Curiosity
“’Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods,’ so said educator and social critic Neil Postman.” [v]
John Larmer writes, “You likely know that young children are intensely curious creatures who ask lots of questions, perhaps hundreds a day. But when a child starts school, the rate drops precipitously, nearing zero by the time they reach middle school. Some of this is due to brain development, and some to social factors; children in a large group in the school setting might feel inhibited from asking too many questions. A big part of the drop, though, is due to the nature of typical schooling today.
Education researcher Susan Engel, in her paper Children’s Need to Know: Curiosity In Schools, reports on a remarkable observation she and her graduate students made when visiting K-5 school classrooms to study curiosity. They planned on examining individual differences between children, seeing whether specific places or activities in a classroom elicited more or less curiosity, and comparing classrooms to one another. However, they were shocked to find out that, “It turned out to be impossible to make the kinds of comparisons we wanted. Why? Because there was such an astonishingly low rate of curiosity in any of the classrooms we visited.” [vi]
“If teachers are to promote curiosity, administrators and policy makers will need to emphasize its value. We need to imagine schools as places where curiosity not only survives but flourishes. If curiosity is understood as essential, no less so than solving a geometry problem or writing a good essay, we might see very different classrooms and very different graduates.” [vii] - Susan Engel, Education Researcher
John Larmer continues, “Similarly, after listing some ways teachers can nurture curiosity, Alfie Kohn notes, ‘Alas, these recommendations for teachers often run smack into structural constraints: an inflexible schedule that doesn’t leave time for exploration; a principal who insists on quiet, orderly classrooms; a central office that imposes a standardized curriculum; a school board that cares more about test scores than about meaningful learning... Much of the problem comes from construing learning as a list of facts to be memorized or discrete skills to be practiced. This premise tends to promote teacher-centered direct instruction, which is often scripted or otherwise tightly controlled.’
Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, agrees: ‘Our current system of education does not encourage, teach, or in some cases even tolerate questioning. Harvard’s Tony Wagner says: ‘Somehow, we’ve defined the goal of schooling as enabling you to have more ‘right answers’ than the person next to you. And we penalize incorrect answers. And we do this at a pace—especially now, in this highly-focused test prep universe—where we don’t have time for extraneous questions.’” [viii]
[i] Jill Anderson, How Curiosity Can Unlock Learning for Every Child
[ii] IBID.
[iii] Penn State Extension, Curiosity is the Wick in the Candle of Learning*
[iv] CuriOdyssey, CuriOdyssey and Curiosity, Engines of Discovery
[vi] IBID.
No comments:
Post a Comment