The Case for Curiosity
Illustrated by iFp Teen Creative Lina
Curiosity. The interest to know or learn something. The urge to see things in ways that others might not see. Everyone has the ability to be curious. Those curiosities can lead to new learning experiences.
Curiosity is an important trait for students to have. Curious minds have a drive to understand, often by asking questions. They want to explore all the possibilities that can come out of one idea. For problems that are usually solved with common strategies, curious minds will be able to create solutions that may seem unusual and unheard of, but works as good as the common solutions or even better. Being able to come up with ideas that are outside of the box or adapting similar ideas are what makes curiosity an important trait to have in this increasingly innovative society. Instances of curiosity bring people together. By having a variety of people contribute different ideas for the same solution can create a greater chance of making everyone be heard and finding the best solution.
At Innovators for Purpose, we always use everyone's ideas and curious mindsets to come up with what we want to research and focus on. All of our voices can be heard, and our diverse mindsets are reflected in the projects we create. This helps us to find solutions to problems we want to solve.
Where our curiosity comes from
Our environment affects how curious we are and what we are curious about. Curiosity has no limits, but relevancy helps determine whether it will be important in the long run. We naturally ask questions about our environment, like what we know about the environment we live in. You can be curious about things that you have yet to learn as well. However, in the world that we live in today, it can be easy to access information about the unknown, which can make us lose interest in those curiosities fairly quickly.
Children are born curious, but children are being taught to learn that failure is not an option if you want to be successful. That is not the case. We are all human, and we need to learn that failure is the most common and effective way of learning. This starts with curious minds exploring various answers to problems without knowing whether they will work or not. The best way to encourage curiosity is by giving many opportunities to ask questions and knowing that there is no wrong way to ask questions. As Charles Proteus Steinmetz once said, “There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.”
Taking Interest
Curiosity begins with the person taking interest in the topic. They have many questions about the topic, and want to know more about it. In our other blog, “It's Time To Take a Risk,” we mentioned different learning strategies that can be implemented in schools to promote curiosity, collaboration, and spark passion. You can get an interest with the curiosity you feel on a certain topic, which can lead to a passion for the topic. However, your interests can change any time, and you can use that to explore different passions.
Learning experiences are different for everybody, and whatever learning strategy fits you best is what you should follow. While some may like visual learning, others may like it when they can do hands-on projects. This shows us that there are multiple learning styles and schools don’t seem to recognize or take into consideration these multiple learning styles. This makes it difficult for students to figure out their passions.
Our Environment
The environment we live in greatly affects our lives. The spark of curiosity that we get can be influenced by our environments. We can all have curious mindsets, even though the environments we live in can differ from person to person. One person’s environment can be very encouraging to nurture that curiosity, while another person’s environmental setting can oppose the curious mindsets. Both of these people can start with the same amount of curiosity despite the differences. However, how motivated you are to retain that curiosity will decide how much you will progress with your creativity. Curiosity is important for life, as it is the key factor of how you learn, and your environment is where your curiosity is sparked.
The point of school is to teach kids how to learn and what to learn for the benefit of their future. Though this should be the case, it is becoming clearer to us as students that it is more about finding where you place on a ranking system. Since how we do is so important, the pass/fail system becomes a prominent part of our studies, making us care more about doing our classwork the ‘right’ way instead of trying to think outside of the box. Students would not want to ask questions that do not fit the material, as they study for their tests. On the other hand, teachers have to see students based on the number grading system instead of their curious minds. This way of teaching is only beneficial to the industrial times, not accurate for the innovative job opportunities for today, and certainly not engaging for most students.
Why should we care?
Schools have the potential to foster curiosity, help us be creative, and make it engaging - not only for students but for those teaching as well. Letting schools continue with the outdated ways of teaching means that we are keeping students from using school as a way to nurture their curiosity, and that should not happen. We should be improving the school environments, and act on the potential of what schools could be, not just note them down or forget about them until it's too late. Knowing that curiosity involves interests and encouraging environments - not just from others but from ourselves as well - we shouldn’t have to create our own environment that fosters our own creativity.