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I’ll admit without shame that I am a big fan of American astrophysicist, author and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Why? Because even though I am a somewhat elderly, sometimes jaded observer of the world around me, deGrasse Tyson, when he speaks or is being interviewed, still excites my curiosity about a universe well beyond the immediate mundane pessimistic news of the everyday.
Speaking on a podcast recently, Tyson reminded teachers: “Your job is less to instill curiosity than to make sure you don’t squash what is already there.”
“However,” Tyson went on to advise, “this curiosity can be diminished by the educational system that teaches to tests instead of making children excited to learn.”
School should, at a minimum, preserve that curiosity, he said. “They’ll retain that curiosity through the turbulent middle school years into high school. And what is an adult scientist but a kid who never lost their curiosity?”
That raises an important question, not just for teachers but for parents: What makes children want to learn and then want to continue to learn as adults?
According to research, it’s the satisfaction derived from being free to explore. It is the freedom to exercise curiosity that, through history, has underpinned new learning, critical thinking and reasoning and has contributed to significant social and scientific progress.
It was a combination of need and persistent curiosity, along with the freedom to make mistakes as they pursued their own curiosity, that led Canadian scientist John A. Hopps to develop the first artificial cardiac pacemaker, or researchers at the Public Health Agency of sa国际传媒 to find ways to develop the first Ebola vaccine.
Canadians Frederick Banting, James Best and James Collip, under the directorship of John Macleod, were driven by curiosity about whether a process for extracting insulin as a treatment for diabetes was even possible.
In 1922, that curiosity was rewarded when diabetic patients who received insulin shots recovered from comas, resumed eating carbohydrates (in moderation) and found they had been given a new lease on life.
It is significant that the NASA Rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, was named “Curiosity” and has continued to explore, providing new information on the Red Planet for 10 years and 55 days since landing.
When we recognize curiosity in children, when we see them exploring their environment, devouring books and information, then asking seemingly endless questions, we are watching them investigate new ideas and search for meaning in those new ideas, all the while connecting with people and nature, which adds up to new learning experiences.
In fact, it is curiosity that is at the heart of early learning and later develops into lifelong learning.
Curiosity boosts and modifies learning at the same time. Children who have been encouraged to nourish their own curiosity often spend a great deal of time reading and acquiring knowledge simply because they sense a gap between what they know and what they want to know — not because they are motivated by grades.
In fact, when kids are in curiosity’s grip, they often forget the immediate goals at hand because they are preoccupied with learning everything about whatever stimulates their need to know.
There is a mountain of research suggesting that intellectual curiosity has as much if not more of an impact on performance in school than “hard work.”
Combined, curiosity and hard work account for success just as much as intelligence.
Other studies have found that students who were curious about a topic retained what they learned about that topic for longer periods of time.
Further research has linked curiosity to a wide range of behaviours that are, in turn, connected to the ability to adapt to circumstances, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotions, humour, playfulness, out-of-box thinking, and a noncritical attitude — all attributes associated with healthy social outcomes.
Encouraging curiosity gives children an advantage not only in school but in the adult world. Today’s business leaders agree that curiosity is at the heart of thriving organizations that have developed imaginative solutions to complex problems.
And a final caution from deGrasse Tyson about the perils of not encouraging curiosity in children: “The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams.”
Tyson adds that kids are born curious about the world, but “what adults primarily do in the presence of kids is unwittingly thwart the curiosity of children.”
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools (and first time grandfather).
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