The Future Belongs to the Curious!

Soon I will be entering my own classroom which is both exciting and nerve-racking. I have taken plenty of education and science classes to help prepare me, but until I have my own classroom it is difficult to be prepared for every scenario. The unknown can be scary, but this blog post aims to ease the fear of the challenges science teachers face.

One challenge I might face in my science classroom is helping my students become curious again. Children are naturally curious, but throughout school, that curiosity dwindles because of some of the adults in their lives. These adults do not do this on purpose, but it is easy to want to contain and control kids. When doing so the children stop thinking outside the box. The following video does a great job of explaining this problem.

So how do we get students curiosity back? I think that it is important to give students the opportunity to think for themselves. Students are taught to be perfect and always have the right answer. This makes students afraid of failure, but failure is a great way to learn. Overcoming failure creates strong and persistent learners. If we teach students it is okay to fail then they will be able to learn from their failures and become successful. One of my favorite quotes showing this is by Thomas Edison.

What are some other ways we can inspire curiosity in the students?

"Our responsibility isn’t solely to teach memorization or
mechanics of a task but to spark a curiosity that empowers students to learn on their own. To wonder. To explore. To become leaders.

…if students leave school less curious than when they
started, we have failed them."

— George Couros (@gcouros) April 17, 2018

• Be curious yourself
  • By showing the students that you are curious about the world around you then they will follow suit. This is a way to model curiosity for your students so that they will feel comfortable being curious too.
• Ask questions and question answers
  • Science is always changing. This is because scientists question and try to understand the world around them. Show students that no one knows everything and we are all learners. Asking questions will show students that it is okay to not understand. By questions “answers” you show students that not everything is fact and that our ideas about the world are always changing.
• Be an active listener
  • Listen to your students and their ideas. By doing this, they will feel comfortable sharing their fun and crazy ideas. Allowing the students to share their ideas will empower their creativity!
• Relate the topics to the students’ daily lives
  • Relating science to the students’ lives will allow them to see why science is important to them and how it affects them. They can start connecting with the content on a personal level to help them grow and understand.