In Amanda Lang’s book, “The Power Of Why: Simple Questions That Lead to Success”, she talks about the importance of curiosity and it’s connection to intelligence:
Curiosity is, therefore, strongly correlated with intelligence. For instance, one longitudinal study of 1,795 kids measured intelligence and curiosity when they were three years old, and then again eight years later. Researchers found that kids who had been equally intelligent at age three were, at eleven, no longer equal. The ones who’d been more curious at three were now also more intelligent, which isn’t terribly surprising when you consider how curiosity drives the acquisition of knowledge. The more interested and alert and engaged you are, the more you’re likely to learn and retain. In fact, highly curious kids scored a full twelve points higher on IQ tests than less curious kids did.
As I was reading this book, here were two things that came to my mind:
How often do we ask kids to brainstorm “questions” as opposed to “answers”? Is this not as valuable a practice? #InnovatorsMindset
— George Couros (@gcouros) July 3, 2016
And then…
Could starting every week off asking kids “what do you wonder?”, and having them ask ?s and provide ideas, make a huge impact on learning?
— George Couros (@gcouros) July 2, 2016
Ian Hecht shared this tweet with me:
@gcouros I started my history 30 class off this way last semester: “What do you want to know about Canada?” It worked really well!
— Ian Hecht (@ianhecht) July 3, 2016
This is getting kids to be “curious about history”, which will definitely help students to flourish in other areas.
You will hear lots of people push the thinking (paraphrased), “Our students shouldn’t ‘do’ math, but try to think like mathematicians.” I can’t remember where I saw it, but I do remember someone challenging this notion suggesting that a “mathematician” is not something you become simply because you are trying to think that way. It takes years of dedication and work to become a “mathematician”, “scientist”, or “writer”. That made sense to me. But what if we promoted the notion that we want to encourage kids to become “curious” about these disciplines? Is this not a step towards that path, while also encouraging students to find their own ways?
Asking questions, not regurgitating answers, is the first step towards innovation and creativity. Promoting curiosity, and having students thirst for knowledge, no matter the discipline, is a much more powerful path than simply learning the “stuff”. It ensures that spark is lit long after their time in any single classroom or school.
What if our goal in school was to inspire curiosity, especially, since in many cases, we actually negate it. I believe the learning that could happen would be something that we create tremendous growth both in schools and society.
