Curiosity:

Honoring, Encouraging, and Satisfying It

By Wendy Priesnitz

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the

restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the
world, with the world, and with each other.” ~ Paulo Freire

Curiosity is a major motivator of learning. Indeed, curiosity is important not only to

how children (and adults) learn, it’s a foundation of good mental health. When we
become incurious, we can also become passive, reactionary, and dull about other
aspects of life, work, and leisure.

Children are said to be born curious – and therefore learning. In her research and her
subsequent books – The Philosophical Baby and The Scientist in the Crib –
psychologist Alison Gopnik demonstrates how infants have a drive for discovery and
experimentation, curiously approaching life like little travelers, enthralled by every
aspect of their environments. It’s a chain reaction: When we’re curious about
something, our imagination gets fired up and we’re curious to know more.

Right from the womb, children’s curiosity drives their learning. They watch intently
what others do, listen closely to what people say, touch everything, and explore
every nook and cranny available to them. Later, they incessantly ask questions in an
attempt to understand the whys and hows of their ever-expanding field of interest.

As I wrote in another article, educational researchers have demonstrated that when

children want to know something, they’re more likely to learn it and remember it. In
an article for the February 2013 edition of the journal Educational Leadership, Susan
Engel – author, psychologist, and director of the program in teaching at Williams
College in Williamstown, Massachusetts – referred to research from the early 1990s
that observed babies playing longer with, and exploring more, toys in which they had
shown a prior interest. And, she wrote, “when older students are intrigued by
unexpected or mysterious descriptions in their reading, they’re more likely to
remember that content later, and to more deeply understand what they read.”

Sadly, most schools are structured to stop the curiosity chain reaction in its tracks.
Where our curiosity leads is a uniquely individual thing, and is often in conflict with
what curriculum writers dictate. In the standardized, competitive, results-focused
environment of schools, there just isn’t time to deviate from the curriculum. In
addition, one almost sure-fire way to dampen a child’s curiosity is to query or test
them about what they’ve learned as a result of some experience.

On the other hand, parents of kids who are living as if school doesn’t exist are free to
recognize, nurture, and protect their children’s curiosity. However, that takes faith
and trust in children and in their learning process. And even life learning parents can
find themselves too busy being curious (or worried) about what children know (or
don’t know) to allow curiosity to be their children’s guides. When we’re worried that
children won’t learn on their own what they are “supposed” to know, we can sideline
their curiosity.

Perhaps the most common concern I get asked about by new life learning parents
reflects their doubts about being qualified to answer all their children’s questions. My
response is that answers are easy to come by; it’s the questions that are important.
The answers will come to the child who is curious and open – not to mention
supported in finding the answers by a caring adult. Unfortunately, in school, that idea
is stood on its head, with the adults asking the questions (to which they already know
the answers) and the children expected to parrot back the “correct” answers.

Another barrier to allowing kids to fully pursue their curiosity is a concern that it will
lead them to risky behavior or into unsafe situations or environments. Kids who are
found to be too exuberant or curious are, all too often, labeled and sedated to keep
them and their surroundings more suitably, well, sedate. However it’s not true that
passive kids are safe kids; it’s just that the dangers are different – obesity from
inactivity and junk food consumption, for instance, rather than “stranger danger” or
whatever other concerns a fearful parent might have.

Although each family must make safety decisions based on their own living situation
and their child’s development stage, we must remember that kids gain real
knowledge from being able to pursue real experiences, rather than constant
protection from risk. I like the way Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, puts
it, “Free-range is not ‘free-wheeling.’ We believe in teaching our kids safety. We just
also happen to believe that kids today are smarter and safer than society gives them
credit for.”

Along with our trust in interest-led learning and our trust that our adventurous
children will be safe, patience and time are required to help our life learning children
go where their curiosity takes them. Children need unstructured time to play, dream,
create, and explore. We should try and remember that learning is not something that
we do to our kids, or that we can produce in them. An education is not something
they “get”…it is something they create for themselves, on a life-long basis. The best
learning – perhaps the only real learning – is that which results from our children’s
personal interests and investigations, from following their own passions and asking
their own questions. Our role as parents is to give them time to pursue their own
answers, not to provide the “correct” answers.

Our support for their curiosity will, as our children grow older, sometimes be more
active. We can provide guidance about the various ways to satisfy their curiosity:
articulating helpful questions, conducting web searches, using a library, contacting
and/or meeting people (adults or other young people) who know a lot about the topic,
evaluating the quality of the sources and information, and so on. We can help nurture
their imaginations through storytelling, reading aloud, travel and neighborhood
expeditions, and time in Nature. Equally important is our modeling curiosity; when
they see adults asking questions, being skeptical, pursuing adventures, and learning-
by-doing, they’ll not only learn but be armored against society’s tendency to sit back
and accept the information that’s fed to us.