Where Did You Get Your Eyes?

 From the desk of Hope…

I was in a kindergarten classroom last week and a student came up to me and asked, “Where did you get your eyes?” Hmmm. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer but it didn’t matter because she was quickly shooed off to do her seat work. She promptly got busy working on sheets laying on her desk. As I left the room, I winked at her and softly mouthed, “we will talk later.” She winked back and shook her head as to say, “ok”.

This scenario just keeps playing over and over in my mind. I really wanted to talk with this little girl to find out more… What was on her mind? Did she really mean she wanted to know where my eyes came from or was she trying to communicate something else? I plan to go back and try to find out more about her curiosity.

This bring me to what I have been thinking about lately – “curiosity”.  A strong desire to know more is a beautiful thing but is it getting lost in our educational system?

If you haven’t noticed lately, children are born curious (and they stay curious under the right conditions). They are constantly trying to figure out the world in which they live. I have my own little curious creature in my house who is fourteen and is, thankfully, still curious. Admittedly, all his questions and energy to know more and more and more drives me crazy at times. I try hard, however, to promote his love of  “knowing” because I realize that life long learning is critical.

Of all the learning outcomes to promote in students, one of the very most important outcomes, if not the most important, has to do with helping students to want to learn more. Think about how easy teaching would be if you had a room full of curious students. As the new standards find their place and new assessments follow, don’t lose sight of the children. They want to know things and have questions – like, “Where did you get your eyes?”

In her essay, Children’s Need To Know: Curiosity in Schools, Susan Engel insists that curiosity is both intrinsic to children’s development and develops through social interactions. Thus, it should be cultivated in schools. She argues that interactions between teachers and students can foster or inhibit children’s curiosity.

Something to think about…

I will close with this quote by Ken Robinson:

“Education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed. The key is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they naturally discover their true passions.”