Curiosity- Are We Teaching it out of our Children?
From the desk of Cindy…
I have had a big life-changing event happen in the last year. My family has grown by one more! Sarah Elizabeth (age 3) entered our lives last fall and as of June she has officially become our daughter. Let me tell you that this has been a HUGE learning curve for us. Not because we have never had children, however, because it has been a LONG TIME since we have lived with a 3 year-old. We have 2 teenage boys and were on the fast track to empty nest. God just had other plans for us!
Sarah is an amazingly curious child. I don’t think she is unlike most 3 year-olds in this area though. Every 3 year old that I have ever known is constantly asking the question “why?” Why does she have to hold the rail coming down stairs? Why does the dog not want her to poke him in the face? Why do I have to take a nap? Remember those days? It is EXHAUSTING! I find myself getting exasperated sometimes and saying, “Sarah, that is not a WHY question!” so that she will stop asking. Is this why students stop being so curious? Do adults get tired of answering all of their questions and put a roadblock to their unending curiosity? I certainly need to remember this the next time I get asked WHY about something. I don’t want her to lose this insatiable need to understand her world!
I reflected on this as I was listening to the fantastic speaker, Stephanie Harvey, at the Literacy Institute sponsored by Education Resource Group. She was speaking about preparing our students for the 21st century and pointing out what the most important thing would be to teach. We don’t even know what the jobs will BE for our students when they come out of the classroom. Would Algebra be the most important? Geometry? Numeration? Calculus? We don’t know. Albert Einstein said it best, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” I think this is the key – teaching students to be passionate and curious about the world around them would be the most important things. I would include problem-solving skills in that list as well.
I find it interesting that the recent miraculous feat of NASA was landing a sophisticated mechanical explorer on Mars – which is 133,000,000 miles away – taking 9 months to arrive – moving at an astronomical speed through harsh environments. Wow what an amazing thing to witness! What did they name this vehicle? Curiosity. How cool is that? Who knows what we will learn from the latest exploration on Mars? We may find new resources we can use on Earth. We could even find life outside of our own planet! Who knows – all I know is that I want Sarah to be curious enough to desire to learn more about her universe!
Are we using teaching strategies right now in the math classroom that inspire students to become the next explorer? Are we letting them discover the power of their own thinking? Are we giving them opportunities to problem solve themselves or are we just giving them algorithms and quick tips so that they can pass a test?
I strongly believe that in this season of testing we are losing our children’s desire to be curious about their world. It is time for a change in our delivery of learning environments. We should be capitalizing on students’ passion, curiosity and thinking. For example, when teaching mean, median, and mode are we just teaching them the “how to” or letting them discover central tendency on their own with worthwhile data that means something to them? I believe that we should be setting up their learning environment so that we are doing the latter.
Another quote that I think sums up this idea is from Eleanor Roosevelt, “Every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don’t make up their own minds, someone will do it for them.”
Let’s stop doing the thinking for our kids and provide the opportunity for them to use curiosity to learn. They could be our next NASA engineer discovering the newest and latest “thinking” that doesn’t exist yet. Wow, mind blowing isn’t it?