Nurturing Curiosity

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the value of questioning versus the value of knowing. It seems like so much of the work in schools is happening at a quick speed. In fact, we are the ones driving at this speed (guilty!) This makes it difficult to remain genuinely curious, ask questions that deepen both student and adult learning, and continually refine our work to make a greater impact.

In my school district, our portrait of an aviator consists of four attributes: character, curiosity, communication and collaboration. When I think about how to bring our portrait into practice, the C that I keep coming back to is curiosity. I worry that if we don’t place an emphasis on being curious and on asking questions, we will raise a future generation of doers versus actionable thinkers. As technology continues to advance and replaces many aspects of the world of work, our human skills such as critical thinking, problem finding, and feeling with others that will be more important than ever.

Too often, we view questions as some kind of attack on authority. Now tone, language, and approach certainly contribute to how questions can be received. What would it look like to build a culture that not only invites and celebrates questioning but, in fact, insists upon it?

I’m currently reading, A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger who explores the pressure placed on educators to get “through” the large quantity of standards in their curriculum. Understandably, a byproduct of the sheer volume of content in our curriculums, may push us to spend less time making space for things we believe in deeply, things like student questioning.

This is why I believe in a teacher-team driven process to prioritize standards using the REAL protocol which I reference in Legacy of Learning. When we focus on what matters most, we make space for questioning, inquiry, and ultimately student engagement and empowerment. This is not conceptually new to us as teachers, but it may be more important than ever. “Covering less” so we can go deeper and more thoughtfully into what matters most may be the very thing that helps us make these jobs more manageable, meaningful, and dare I say: FUN.

As we head into this week, how might you encourage, celebrate, and nurture more questions with students, staff, and even parents or community members?